


in my head

by kyoloren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A warped romance story wrapped up in the guise of a war, Alternate Universe, Angst and Tragedy, Canon Related, Canonical Character Death, Dual POV, Established Relationship, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Inverted love story, Minor Character Death, dark and twisty, dark to light, darkside!rey, domestic angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 10:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 40,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13293057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoloren/pseuds/kyoloren
Summary: Both raised by the Sith power of Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo and Rey are the most powerful wielders of the Force in eons. Together, they’re a tactile team force, leaving death and destruction in their wake. However, when Rey begins to feel a pull toward the light, will she be able to resist, or will she bring Kylo down with her toward the light?





	1. Rey

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing in the Star Wars universe. I'm trying to be as accurate as possible! 
> 
> I really wanted to explore what it would be like for Rey to have also been part of the darkside and how the relationship with her and Kylo would be if they were sort of "raised" together as pawns of Snoke! 
> 
> There will be alternating chapters with their points of view!
> 
> Stay tuned for more.

Rey leaned against the smooth, dark wall within the Star Dreadnought  _ Supremacy _ , her hand palm up in front of her. Two small, metal orbs circled around each other. It was like a nervous tick for her: spinning the beads around kept her mind off of questionable thoughts.

They spun around and around, like they were chasing each other.

Her other hand, wrapping in thin black strips of fabric, pressed against the wall beside her. It hummed with the strength of the engines within the ship the size of a small continent.

The click of shoes against the polished floor alerted her to the presence of a few officers. Her face was obscured from view by the shadows cast by her thin hood. She spied the three officials through her lashes, and their steps quickened when they spotted her still form, metal balls floating in the air above her palm.

She couldn’t help the smirk that tugged up the corner of her lips as she watched them hurry around a corner.

The elevator next to her came to a silent stop and the doors opened. Rey’s hand clasped both of the metal balls as she pushed herself away from the wall.

Kylo Ren stepped out of the bright elevator, head to toe in black. He was an impressive figure, tall and mysterious and dangerous with the mask over his face, the cloak around his shoulders, and the hilt of a lightsaber at his side.

Most people called Kylo _Sir_. Rey called him partner.

“How did it go?” she asked, falling into step next to him. His strides were too long to match, but she walked effortlessly at his side. The split ends of her flowing black wrap fluttered out behind her. Unlike him, she couldn’t abide by the crisp and perfect uniforms of the New Order. She liked her soft, fraying edges; it made it easier for her to blend into shadows.

“There is a Rebel force on Takodana,” he replied, his voice obscured by the mask.

She personally hated his mask, but he was particularly attached to it.

Rey frowned slightly. “I thought we left Takodana alone? Maz Kanata’s establishment hosts many pirates and smugglers that sell information for Order protection.”

“That was before known Rebel leaders took refuge on the planet’s surface.”

“Is your mother there?”

He didn’t stop walking, but she felt the slight hitch in his entire being at the mention of Leia. “Most likely,” he said, any emotion in his voice muffled.

Rey pursed her lips, resting a small hand on the long silver hilt of her double-bladed lightsaber at her hip. Like Kylo, she had made her own, though hers had stable, flawless blades of light while his crackled and wavered.

There was a tug in the Force around them, signaling the enormous ship being pulled into hyperdrive to travel quickly across the galaxy.

“Are we going there now?” she asked, a tiny spark of excitement flitting through her voice.

If she could see his face, she’d know that he allowed himself a small smile at her enthusiasm.

“Yes. We’ll join the starfighters in the hanger and head down to the surface.”

Rey grinned, malicious intent behind her bared teeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty minutes later, Rey was settled in the pilot seat of her custom starfighter,  _ Carnage _ . It was small and round like a disk, faster and lighter than the uniform fighters that the Order had thousands of. She had a single silver comm curved around her ear and her cheek.

She went over the controls, double-checking. She never trusted the Order’s hired mech-team. She preferred to go over everything herself.

Her entire being thrummed in anticipation. Her bare hands skimmed over buttons and switches. Her ears perked up at the heavy arrival of Kylo, dropping down into the small ship from above. The portal closed behind him, sealing them both inside.

The small space felt even more confined with him in it.

Rey didn’t mind.

“Two minutes,” he told her.

She swiveled in her seat and arched a strong eyebrow. The mask was still covering his face. She knew that it was tactical and useful against the gale force winds, but it dehumanized him to her with it. Without seeing his face, she felt as if she were expected to be his subordinate.

They both knew that they were strong; the strongest of them all. Rey would argue that she was stronger than him—he held the scars to prove it—but they agreed to disagree on the matter.

“Any last minute reservations?” she asked. Even if his mother was on the surface of the planet, the Order would take no precautions to spare her life, or the life of any other person on Takodana.

The cabin was small, and it took little for him to raise a thickly gloved hand, ghosting a soft touch over her cheek. “No.” His voice was final and resolute.

She nodded sharply and turned back to the controls as a buzzer went off, signaling their arrival close to the planet’s atmosphere. The hanger filled with sound as the engines started and ships rose from the ground in formation to blast through the open end of the hanger as soon as there were no beings in the hanger without protection.

_ Carnage _ rose from the ground perfectly and shot out of the Dreadnaught. Rey flicked a few buttons as she dove through the atmosphere. Kylo stood grounded behind her and gripped the back of the seat.

Rey saw blasts of lights through the clouds, red and blue and green. Lasers shot to and from the surface. Power swelled in her chest as she popped out of the clouds and brought the ship to a hovering halt. The portal opened at the top of the ship and Kylo pulled himself through. The last thing Rey heard before it closed again was the ringing sound of his saber coming to life.

This was their signature  _ move _ . It’s what made them dangerous because it was  _ unthinkable _ and impossible to implement if you weren’t a Sith or Jedi.

Rey gritted her teeth while, above her, Kylo knelt against the smooth metal of  _ Carnage _ , using the Force to hold himself against the ship. She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes and filled herself with the feeling of the chaos going on below, with the guns and the ships and the lives being taken.

Her eyes flew open and, as she let out the air from the lungs, the ship flew forward. She was an outstanding pilot, even without her connection to the Force, and she zipped around blasts and exploding starfighters. She got close enough to the ground, just a handful of yards away, when Kylo jumped.

His descent and landing was softened by the Force. She saw his form fly through the air, black and sharp red, and twisted  _ Carnage _ around, sending off blasts with a war scream lost to all, contained in the small cabin.


	2. Kylo

Kylo’s boots slammed down against the ground in a swirl of dust and leaves. The planet of Takodana was lush, with lakes and greenery as far as the eye could see. Water and green now dripping and stained with red from bodies caught by the starfighter blasts. A dropship set down nearby, letting off a platoon of white-armored Stormtroopers.

Gripping the hilt of his saber, Kylo swung to block the ill-shot lasers from a handful of Resistance fighters startled by his sudden appearance. With the use of the Force on his side, he sliced through them like a hand through water. The arrival of the troopers brought the sounds of battle up a notch, the screams and blasts filling his ears, even though the helmet.

The Order’s attack dragged the rebels away from Maz Kanata’s crumbling castle, making it easier to pick them off. X-Wing fighters exploded overhead, littering the ground below with debris.

Kylo moved forward, taking lives left and right. As much as he had his sights on overthrowing Snoke and becoming the Supreme Leader, he had to admit he loved getting his hands dirty. The more lives he took, the stronger the Force around him became. It was even more of an exhilarating experience with Rey at his side; she had an energy about her that was hard to replace.

As if on cue, her voice crackled through his helmet. “There’s a transport ship on the other side of the ridge!”

Kylo sliced through another body and felt the heat of the blasts around him. He could feel the closeness of his mother if he concentrated. He turned and saw Rey’s disk of a ship shooting across the sky in the direction of the transport. “Stop them,” he snarled to her.

The rebels were dwindling down, losing hope and numbers and weapons. The last X-Wing exploded over the water in a shower of sparks and metal. A rectangular transport ship sat blasted open just in front of him. Stepping around bodies, Kylo ducked through the mangled metal and took a sweeping look inside. Supplies, a few bodies, but otherwise nothing of importance. These ships were more likely to be lost and rarely held important information stores.

The sounds of blasters tapered off outside as the last of the Resistance fighters left on the surface were taken care of. As Kylo stepped out of the downed transport, the air suddenly filled with the roar of a new ship. Rocketing into the air from behind the castle rose a ship he was intimately familiar with.

_ The Millennium Falcon _ .

Whoever was flying knew what they were doing. Using the large blaster, it sent shots toward Kylo and the Stormtroopers still standing. Kylo let out a hiss as something sliced his upper arm, ripping through the fabric of his uniform to dig deep into his flesh. The  _ Falcon _ was covering for the small transport ship. It had more defenses than a tiny, weaponless transport.

Kylo spotted the zooming shape of  _ Carnage _ but it couldn’t get through the  _ Falcon _ ’s shields unless Rey flew it close enough in range to get hit by the blaster. It was a useless battle. On the ground, Kylo cursed in frustrations and gripped the handle of his lightsaber until his glove creaked.

Finally,  _ Carnage _ got sent flying back by a blast and the  _ Falcon _ , though large, escaped with the speed and precision of someone who knew how to fly it well. It couldn’t be his father, Kylo had killed him years ago, but there were a number of people left alive who could pilot that ship.

“Search the surrounding area,” Kylo commanded the Stormtroopers. “Flush out any strays and kill them all.”

His sights were on  _ Carnage _ , making a shaky landing near one of the dropships. The side of the small ship was scorched, the weapons system looked like it took a direct hit. Kylo collapsed his lightsaber and walked toward the ship as Rey, sweaty and eyes wild, crawled out of it.

“Where did that ship come from?” she exclaimed, feet on the soft earth. She tilted her head upward and shielded her eyes from the suns as if she could still see the ship that had gone into hyperspace.

“My past.” Had Snoke known this? Had he known Leia would be on the surface and that his father’s iconic ship would make an appearance? Was this some sort of test?

“Kylo?” Rey gripped his elbow below his battle wound. “Take off the mask.”

He did. Her hand left his arm with a smear of red that she didn’t wipe off. His helmet dangled at his fingertips. “I thought I was free of this.”

“My blaster got hit, I couldn’t stop the transport ship.” Failure wasn’t tolerated between them, not under Snoke’s tutelage. Her hands formed fists at her sides.

“My mother was on that ship.” Saying it made it more real. It would hold him accountable if he wasn’t the only one who knew.

“This was a test.” She spoke the words he’d thought earlier, because she knew him that well.

“This is my past. I have to face it and destroy it on my own.”

Rey’s brows furrowed for just a moment before smoothing out. “You will prevail,” she encouraged him with a single, swift nod.

The world around them crackled with the sounds of post-battle. It was a very distinct sound, one that was hard to put into words, one that was hard to duplicate anywhere else but on a battlefield as the dust settled.

The distant noise of blaster guns echoed through the space, signaling the deaths of more rebels.

Kylo’s face hardened with resolve. “Let’s go.” He stepped forward and Rey sidestepped out of his way. He climbed into the small ship and Rey soon followed, slipping into her pilot’s seat.

They spoke no more of pasts or failures.


	3. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little FYI! This is kind of AU, but following some similar plots from the two sequel films. I'll try my hardest to make it clear what the differences are, since they are both subtle and major at times.

Rey sank down into the warm water, settling down against the slope of the tub and leaning her head back. It was quiet and serene,  _ Supremacy _ moving through space so smoothly it felt as if she were on the surface of a planet.

Closing her eyes, she ran her hands through the water until she grew tired and dozed off.

_ Rey _ .

She should be used to it by now, but half-asleep, she splashed in the bath and twisted, her shoulders coming out of the water.

Kylo stood there out of uniform, in the doorway between her bedchamber and washroom. He wasn’t truly there, of course. She’d seen him off with General Hux hours earlier, after the battle on Takodana.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked with a sliver of amusement.

She slipped back into the water. “I was sleeping.”

He moved and sat himself near her, as if he were really in the room. They’d come a long way since the first days they connected so strongly through the Force. Astral projections were no easy feat, but the two of them were powerful.

“How upset was Hux that the Supreme Ruler gave you a direct military order rather than sending the message through him?” Rey asked, tilting her head back into the water to smooth it like a helmet over her scalp.

Kylo shrugged a shoulder covered in soft gray fabric. “It isn’t the first time. It won’t be the last.”

Rey smiled, digging her top teeth into her bottom lip. She shifted in the tub, folding her arms along the edge of the tub and resting her chin against her wrists. “Have they found the transport ship yet?”

Tracking was equal parts tricky and easy, depending on the type of vehicle one was trying to trail. Smaller ships with less tech were significantly more difficult to chase.

“No.” He sat forward, bringing their faces closer.

Rey made a small noise in the back of her throat. She was a little bit scorned at the fact that Kylo wanted to do so many things on his own—kill his mother, kill his uncle, destroy that ship that nearly blew her out of the sky—but that was only because of her own faults. She had such little connection to her past that it made it so much easier for her to move forward. Her parents were gone; her life before she found the strength of the Force within her wasn’t worth thinking about.

They were completely different people in that respect.

She leaned forward, reaching up toward his face. Her fingertips touched the scar across his cheek, the one she knew continued down his neck to his chest in an ugly, curved line. She knew because she’s the one who put it there.

Kylo wasn’t the only one with a temper.

“When will we be together again?” she asked, letting her hand and arm fall. He caught it with his own, his hand circling around her forearm just under her elbow. It was such an odd sensation, touching someone who was lightyears away. It was as if they were there and not there at the same time. They used to not be able to touch at all, but years of utilizing their Force bond made it as realistic as possible.

“Soon.”

They didn’t speak of the reasons why she stayed on Snoke’s Dreadnaught and he went away. There were a lot of things they didn’t talk about. Like Snoke believing her to be stronger than him. About Snoke pining them not only  _ to _ each other, but also  _ against _ each other. There was always the chance hanging over their heads of them having to face one another one day.

All things unspoken but known between them.

Rey dug her blunt nails into the fabric covering his forearm. She couldn’t quite feel its softness through the Force, but she could imagine. “I will come to you if it’s not soon enough,” she said, looking up at him with eyes wide and unguarded. “I promise.”

He nodded and dropped to his knees to kiss her. Water sloshed up over the edge of the tub but fell right through his form. Rey clutched at his shirt and wished fervently that he were really here.

The buzzer at her door broke her concentration and Kylo disappeared as if he’d never been there. Water puddled on the floor and she narrowed her eyes. Stepping out of the water, she didn’t bother drying off, but grabbed a thin robe and wrapped it around herself before answering the interruption at the door.

A nameless, faceless guard stood there. “You have been called for an audience with the Supreme Leader,” he told her.

Rey pushed wet strands of hair off of her forehead. “Thank you,” she said, with no politeness in her voice. There was annoyance and menace. She pushed the officer across the hall with a flick of her wrist so his back jarring contact with the wall opposite. Her door slid closed behind her as she twisted away.

She dressed no quicker than if she were getting ready for a routine day. Trousers, boots, tunic, shreds of fabric lacing up her arms, thin fabric folded and tucked around her torso to form a hood and mini cloak. To finish it off, she pulled on a slightly thicker cloak, one with a heavier hood that hid her face fully within its shadowy depths. Once her hair was braided and her form was hidden behind the ensemble, she slipped her lightsaber in the loop on her belt and walked out of her room with a flourish she rarely implemented.

The elevator leading to Supreme Leader Snoke’s throne room was bright and sharp and Rey’s hand itched to reach for the small metal beads in her pocket. The focus was something she wanted to keep her mind clear, but before she could grab them, the door slid opened, revealing the dark, blood-red room.

Snoke sat on his throne, with his red-garbed Praetorian Guards set out in a protective half-circle around the Supreme Leader. Rey walked forward with her head held high and her shoulders back, only stopping and kneeling once she was close enough to his podium.

“ _ The Millennium Falcon _ ,” Snoke’s voice echoed within the round room. “That ship was on the surface of Takodana?”

“Yes,” Rey said, her voice strong but small in comparison.

“And you know what this means for Kylo Ren.”

She shifted her eyes up slightly. “Yes,” she repeated.

Snoke sat there, quietly, getting a reading of her. Her emotional state, her resolve, her  _ passion _ and where it all was leading her. “Do you know why you’re stronger than him?” He was close to goading.

“I came from nothing.” Rey chose her words carefully.

“Kylo Ren has much more left to do to rid himself of his past. Until then, he will still follow childish patterns and fluxes of power while you, my fiercest of warriors, is already nearly a master.”

Rey couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride at the mention. She’d been working for what felt like her entire life to become skilled enough to be called a master. However, she knew that everything that Snoke did was for a purpose. Every word uttered, every meeting planned…nothing was mere chance or coincidence.

“Thank you, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke waved a large, bony hand. “You will need to watch him. If his resolve waivers, you know what you’ll have to do.” He filled her head with the images and emotions he thought she would need to follow through with what he was asking of her. “I will not have pupils of mine brand themselves as failures within my own Order.”

Rey swallowed hard, feeling the slight push of the Force around her throat, a subtle reminder that she was still an apprentice and he was still her master. Bowing her head, she pledged to do as he commanded.


	4. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're starting to dig into some plot now! Just a bit. I hate writing transitions which is why some of my chapters may be a little shorter than others. I have a whirlwind of things planned for these two by mixing in elements from TFA and TLJ! 
> 
> Thanks for all the views and comments!

_ Four years ago _

Kylo stuck to the shadows, watching the youngest of the Knights of Ren run circles around the five others. She had nothing but her raw strength and a staff in hand of her own height. Five against one should have been difficult, but she was holding her own as if she did this daily.

Which, since she was still merely a Knight and not an apprentice, Kylo supposed that she did do this every day.

He watched with calculated eyes as she dipped and wove and took down opponents with powerful telekinetic strength and the length of her staff. Finally, when she took down the last of them with a sickly crunch of bone, she spun around and pointed the end of her staff at him. He saw no remorse in her eyes, no weakness.

“Kylo Ren,” she said, her voice strong as the other Knights tried to pick themselves up from the fight. Those that were still conscious that is. She spun the staff and used it to lean against. “Were you waiting your turn?”

He surveyed the unmoving bodies of two of the Knights and stepped out of the shadows into the training area. There was something very delicate looking about her, but he knew far better than to let his guard down. “You want to fight me?” He touched an ungloved hand to his chest.

She and he had never fought before. Snoke made sure of that, keeping them together but apart for the past ten years. The Supreme Leader molded the girl, Rey, into something worth Kylo’s time and effort. It had all been perfectly planned like a board game, and yet they both played directly into his hands.

Rey looked around the room. “There’s no one else left.” She took small steps back as he walked closer, joining her on the hard floor made with swirling black and white rock. There were no cushions here, nothing to soften any blows. “Do you know how to use one of these?” She tossed him the staff, which he caught, not dismissing the fact that she’d thrown it high at his head.

Kylo spun the weapon in his hands. It had been a while since he trained with a staff, but his body remembered the motions. He said nothing in response, and she used the Force to pull a new staff toward her from the wall where a number of weapons sat. With one fluid motion, the staff landed in her hands and she lunged at him.

They circled each other and tapped staffs a few times. They were long weapons, unlike a lightsaber, which required one to be closer to the enemy. Eventually, they got closer and the fight ramped up, the air around them quivering with power. They moved  _ together _ unlike the others, who Kylo had watched Rey demolish as if they were ants. There was something different between them, something that made their fight more like a dance than a brawl.

Complimentary power, perhaps.

Their staffs locked together and he pulled her close with mere mortal strength. She stared at him with anger a fiery red flame in her eyes. The moment lingered until she used the Force to push him, the staffs flying. His boots skidded against the smooth floor and steel darkness slammed down behind his eyes.

In full attack mode, Kylo warped the Force around her, lifting her off the ground, restraining her limbs. She yelled, animalistic and guttural, and fought against his hold on her, getting loose enough to gracelessly land on the floor, falling heavy on one leg. Untapped pain and anger showed itself on her face and he called a staff to him once again. He spun it and let it fall, the warm metal touching her neck.

“Not bad,” he complimented her.

She glared up at him, teeth bared. She had used a massive amount of power in a short amount of time. He was impressed she’d been able to hold out for so long.

He set the butt of the staff against the floor and reached a hand down to her. “You have real talent. I can help you wield it.”

Questions flickered across her eyes, about Snoke, about if this was supposed to work this way, but the doubt faded quickly. She set her jaw and reached for his hand, allowing him to lightly lift her to her feet. She winced against the pain when she put weight on her left knee but hid it well enough. “What can you teach me that I haven’t already learned?” She was young, eighteen, and had little sense of the magnitude that could be achieved by utilizing a natural connection to the Force.

Kylo smiled, a half-slice of white teeth in his usually stern or covered face. “You’ll see.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ The Present _

Kylo walked through the halls of the Star Destroyer, toward the hanger where a small transport ship just docked. He didn’t even make it halfway there from the bridge when Rey came around the corner, wrapped in her dark clothes, double hoods pulled up over her hair.

“Rey?” he said, because it was a surprise to find her here so soon. Granted, one of her strongest traits was her impatience. Though by the look on her face, something may have gone wrong.

Before he had the chance to ask, she walked up to him, grabbed his collar in her hands and pulled him down, kissing him hard and arching her body against his. Her hoods fell back. He cupped her head in his hand and wrapped an arm around her, lifting her off the ground. She hooked her arm around his neck and opened her lips to deepen the kiss.

When they finally couldn’t breathe, he set her down gently on her feet. He looked at her face, finding conflict there where he usually found resolve.

“What happened?”

She shook her head and rubbed her thumb over the scar on his cheek. “Snoke’s pawns,” she said quietly to only he could hear. Her rested her other hand over his chest, his strong heart beating under her palm.

His eyes clouded over and he clenched his jaw. “Come with me.” He turned and started walking back the way he came, his cloak flowing out behind him. Rey rubbed at her face and followed, straightening her shoulders and falling into step.

Their display had been horrendously public, but it wasn’t like they kept it a secret. No one ever spoke of it directly to their faces—with the exception of Snoke when he was trying to manipulate them into something—but everyone in the First Order  _ knew _ .

The Star Destroyer where General Hux spent most of his time when not at the secret base was large, but much smaller than the Dreadnaught Rey had just come from. It was also a lot busier, with many more soldiers, officers and people in general. Many saw them and said nothing. They made an impressive pair in black with cloaks behind them, walking through the middle of the hallways. They  _ were _ the most important people in the galaxy, and they made sure everyone around them knew it.

They were nearing the bridge when General Hux appeared in his black uniform, not a red hair out of place. There were a number of guards around him, and he didn’t try to hide the distaste at seeing Rey there.

“General Hux,” Rey said, as if they were old friends.

Kylo tried not to smirk at the look Hux’s face twisted into. He was itching to teach the military leader some respect toward the woman at his side.

“How nice of you to join us,” Hux forced out, clasping his hands together. “To what do we owe this rare visit?”

Rey licked her lips with a pink tongue and turned toward Kylo, sliding a hand up his chest and leaving it there. “We come as a pair, or weren’t you told?”

Hux paled at the deadly look on both of the warrior’s faces: Kylo’s severe and shrewd. Rey’s angry and annoyed at having to stoop to Hux’s level. The General swallowed visibly.

“Of…of course. It will be an honor to have you both on board.” He gave them a curt nod. “If you’ll excuse me.”

They didn’t move away from the middle of the hall and Hux and his officers turned to clumsily return to the bridge. Rey gave a sharp laugh like a knife through skin as they continued on their way.

“I will never get tired of that,” she said as Kylo continued to guide them through the large ship.

“Treating Hux like a toy?” he asked.

She grinned, the confusion and imbalance he’d seen just minutes before completely masked. “You know I love a game of cat and mouse.”

Kylo slid his hand around her waist to slow her walk and turn her down a hallway to the left. “Be careful with Hux.”

“Why? I can handle him.”

“I have no doubt, but replacing him would be tedious.”

She shrugged a bare shoulder and continued walking next to him until they reached the door to his chambers. There were numerous rooms catacombed together behind the single door. Kylo pressed against the keypad. Rey stood close, facing him now, one of her hands twitching in a way he recognized as a nervous tick. Usually she soothed it with her small metal orbs—they were dangerous and deadly to use in battle, one of the reasons why he never pushed her to stop using them as a crutch—but not today.

The pad beeped and Rey let out a little sigh. “Finally,” she breathed out, once again gripping his collar. She walked backward into the room, pulling him with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To get into the sexy-dark-side-couple mindset, I had this beautiful art up while writing this chapter. Check it out! [FANART](http://shipping-yard-central.tumblr.com/post/168695453810/god-damn-it-rey-you-could-have-ruled-the-galaxy)


	5. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SUPER into the idea that Rey is extremely malicious and vicious. Just roll with it.

His hands were big, digging fingertip shaped bruises into her hips and leaving claw marks of red down her back. She moved her hips and rocked back and forth, stealing his breath with her lips, nipping at and digging her nails into his skin. She paused to breathe and settle down hard in his lap before pushing him back roughly against the mattress.

She took a mere second to take his scars into account, the rough patches of angry skin from battles long ago won and that the expression on his face that only she ever got to see. Hungry and greedy, she slid her body up along his, her hands trailing across muscles as her lips found his neck and she continued moving her hips with pure muscle memory. Her breath hitched and she pushed herself up, her palms flat against his chest as everything built up around them.

Small things in the room shook on hard surfaces.

His hands roamed to her ribs, her breasts. She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip and dipped down suddenly, replacing her lip with his. She was kind, spilling no blood tonight as she let out a throaty, mewling growl as her body snapped and flowed and he dug his hands into her flesh until they were both satisfied and neither of them could move any longer.

The room settled and minutes later, once they could breath without panting, Rey slung her leg over one of his and propped herself up on her elbows, looking down at him with sweaty hair hanging like string around her face.

“Have you thought of it recently?” she asked, tracing lazy lines against the black sheet, and the only skin of his she could reach.

He didn’t have to be told what she was asking about. Overthrowing Snoke, taking over the Order. He propped a hand under his head and studied her face. “Why? Were you sent to assassinate me?”

“Not yet,” she said softly. She lowered her eyes, watching her light skin against his lighter skin. “Something is…shifting. Can’t you feel it?”

“I can.” He moved the arm she was trailing her fingers down and rested his hand against the side of her waist. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.” Rey frowned slightly. “Whatever it is, we have to prepare for it.”

Kylo nodded in quiet contemplation.

There were a million things she wanted to say, but instead, she got out of bed and walked to the bathroom to clean up. Her body was littered with just as many scars as his. Blaster wounds like exploding suns, burns and slashes leaving her skin marred with more than just a dusting of freckles that took up residence on her shoulders and across her nose. Rey filled the sink and screamed into the water, nothing but bubbles escaping her lips.

Once her face and hair were toweled dry, she slipped back into bed just in time for Kylo to leave. She was too tired to move down the hall to the rooms specifically prepared for her. With him gone, her eyes lingered on the door she never went through, the place that she knew housed Vader’s helmet.

Snoke’s words echoed through her mind, paired with images of possible futures, of Kylo’s death on her hands.

Rey scrunched her hands up under the pillow and buried her head in the soft fabric. Her torso got cold as she laid there, her legs marginally warm under the covers. Turning her head just enough to breathe and get words out, she decided to speak, letting words tumble from her lips. “I have to come with you,” she said once the water turned off in the other room. The lights dimmed and the mattress dipped with Kylo’s return.

“Where?” He settled down on his side. She couldn’t see his face in the dark but she could feel his breath on her face.

“To kill your family.”

“I told you—“

“And I’m telling you.” She twisted onto her side fully and felt out with a hand. The pads of her fingers moved over the raised scar she’d left curling over his collarbone. “I  _ have _ to go with you. Snoke insisted.”

She missed the twitch of anger in his face, the angry snarl his lips took. “He doesn’t believe I can do it.”

Rey scooted closer as her night vision kicked in. “Listen to me.” She moved her hand to rest against his face. His own hand, warm and heavy, settled on the dip of her waist. “I believe you can succeed. I know you better than he does.” It was things like this, whispered treasons that they could only do a galaxy away from the Supreme Leader without being killed on the spot. “You  _ can _ do whatever needs to be done. I will come with you only to appease all of  _ them _ . Snoke, Hux…we have to keep up appearances.”

She didn’t mention that the desperation in her voice for him to succeed was more than just her faith in him. It was there from the doubt planted by Snoke, the possibility of  _ needing _ to kill him. She didn’t blink an eye at taking the life of anyone, but the thought of killing Kylo made her furious and terrified.

He recited the Sith code into the dark room. She knew he didn’t have his  _ passions  _ sided with the old ways of the Sith, that he wanted something more than that, but its words were still true for anyone who used the dark side of the Force. “Through Passion I gain Strength. Through Strength I gain Power. Through Power I gain Victory.”

Rey reached through the dark and took his face in her hands, pulling him close until their foreheads touched. “Through Victory my chains are Broken. The Force shall free me,” she finished and gave him a chaste kiss. “Now sleep.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rey cracked open one eye, her face hidden by the pillow. Kylo moved to answer the door after pulling on trousers. She had no idea how long it had been since she’d fallen into a dark, inky sleep. The light suddenly bombarding her senses in the room made her want to punch something.

General Hux stood there, stuttering over the out-of-uniform Kylo and she saw his eyes drift to her naked and barely covered form farther into the room before he snapped to attention. She glared at him with her one eye.

“What is it?” Kylo finally had to prod him into speaking.

“There is a problem,” Hux replied, as if he wasn’t sure he should be speaking in front of her. “A prisoner escaped.”

With a tiny, sharp sigh, Rey stood, twisting the black sheet around her body. “What kind of prisoner?” she asked, stepping up beside Kylo.

“A rebel prison. We’ve been keeping her for interrogation,” Hux said. He was so profoundly uncomfortable right now, she couldn’t help but play into it. She leaned against Kylo, who seemed more annoyed than usual, but he didn’t protest.

“Is she still on the Destroyer?” Kylo asked. Hux visibly sighed with relief to be directing the conversation with the pawn of Snoke he was accustomed to addressing.

“Yes. All escape pods and ships are accounted for and they’re being guarded.”

Rey grinned. “General, did you  _ let _ this prisoner escape just so I could have something to play with?”

Flummoxed. Hux looked flummoxed. “No! I would never—“

She reached forward and patted his cheek hard. “Thank you. I’ll be sure not to kill any of your troopers unless they get in my way.” She turned around to return to the darkness of the room, picking up the pieces of her outfit off the floor.

Completely outmatched and with no more say in the matter, Hux straightened his shoulders and met Kylo’s eyes. “I need the prisoner  _ alive _ .”

“I can’t promise that,” Kylo said coolly before raising his voice a notch but not taking his eyes off the General. “Rey?”

“Can I promise alive but maybe in more than one piece?” She was getting quite the thrill from watching the two of them have some sort of egotistical man-battle. At least it kept Hux’s eyes off of her very naked form as she quickly dressed. Kylo would surely kill the General if he looked at her too long.

Sighing as she strapped her belt in place, she tilted her head toward the door. “ _ Alive _ , I understand. You can go now.” She waved her hand and Hux was pushed backward with an invisible strength. Kylo stepped back and the door slid shut. Rey stood and wrapped her black fabric around her arms. “Did  _ you _ set up this treat for me?”

Kylo raised his eyebrows a microscopic amount. “No.”

She pulled her hair back from her face, crazy, curling strands framing her face. Smoothing her hands over her scalp, she held out a hand and her lightsaber hilt flew into her awaiting palm. “This will be fun.” She didn’t try to hide her excitement. It had been far too long for her liking since she’d had to track someone. Adrenaline was ready to flood her system.

Kylo stopped her on her way past, his arm reaching across her body. “Alive,” he reminded her with a gentle press to her hip.

Rey rolled her eyes and splayed her own hand across his bare chest. “As you command,” she said as sweetly as she could before she slipped away into the harsh lighting of the corridor.

The Star Destroyer was large, but it took only a little deduction to pick a direction to take. The prisoner, if she somehow knew her way around the ship, would try to look for an escape ship so Rey headed toward the interrogation section of the ship and worked her way from there.

There was no reason to mask who she was. Her thin hood was down. The instant she stepped into the wide corridor, she ignited her lightsaber. Two perfectly straight and red beams of light sparked out of each end of the long hilt.

When she was making her saber, she’d toyed with the idea of a pike, being skilled with fighting with a staff, but the terror on people’s faces when she came at them with two separate blades was far too encouraging. The halls were wide enough for her to lazily handle the weapon, the red-hot blades buzzing through the air around her.

The ship was quiet all around her. It was possible to  _ feel _ someone through the Force, though it was difficult to pinpoint someone’s physical location unless they were blood related or someone particularly close. Rey and Kylo, for example, were always able to find each other, no matter where they were. Trying to identify someone Rey didn’t  _ know _ was difficult but not impossible once she had a few decades of Force wielding under her belt.

Instead, she stuck to her own tactics, following instinct. Her instincts were rarely wrong. If she doubted them, that’s when she began to fail. So she walked and focused on the Force, trusting in it to guide her.

“Come out, come out, little mouse,” she said in a quiet singsong voice. She stepped quietly and deliberately as she got closer to the escape pods nearest the cells.

A blast from a gun flew past her, narrowly missing her shoulder. Rey snarled and twisted the two foot length of her hilt, splitting the metal into two. So the prisoner had weapons, but she also gave away her position.

“I won’t hurt you if you come quietly,” Rey continued, the lie falling easily off her tongue. She spun the sabers in her hands and squeezed. The rapid blasts from the girl’s gun were easy to dodge and block with the smoldering light of her blades. Ray narrowed her dark eyes at the light haired form of a small young woman who darted into the hall, only to rush down an offshoot.

Rey could have easily grabbed her, but what fun would  _ that _ be? Instead, she prowled after, anticipating the rushed expulsion of blaster beams until she heard the gun jam. A permanent smirk curled up her lips as she turned down the hall. The prisoner cursed and tossed the gun aside.

“Stay  _ away _ from me!” she yelled, her voice small and shaky as she reached for another weapon she had somehow gotten a hold of. It was a Z6 baton, but the poor thing didn’t know how to use it properly.

_ Pity _ . Rey was looking forward to a fight.

“I admire your courage,” Rey said, pointing a blade at the girl still fumbling with the baton. “It is ill used but it’s rare anyone shows true prowess these days.”

The girl, with her wild eyes and white blonde hair looking like a rat’s nest, gave Rey such a defiant look that the Force user paused. Then the prisoner charged, using the unpowered Z6 like a club.

Rey lifted one saber to block and sliced half through the metal. She gritted her teeth and kicked the girl away with a boot to the abdomen. The girl coughed, bent over, though she held onto the baton about to break in two. “Children shouldn’t play with weapons,” Rey taunted.

The girl stood in defiance with her broken weapon. “I would rather  _ die  _ than tell you anything about the Resistance.”

Rey arched an eyebrow. “So be it.” She spun forward, using the Force for an extra push of speed, crossing her blades at the girl’s throat. Sweat beaded up on the prisoner’s skin, both of their faces highlighted in red. The girl looked scared for the first time, which Rey found repulsive. So much for bravery.

“Goodbye, little mouse,” Rey said, just as the girl’s lips parted to say a single word:

“Rey?”

The woman in black hesitated, a flicker of confusion in her eyes, before she turned off and relinked her sabers to clench one hand into a fist to force the girl unconscious. The prisoner crumpled to the floor.

Rey stood over her. The young woman’s face didn’t look familiar, but Rey’s name wasn’t known across the galaxy. She was mostly known as Kylo Ren’s malicious counterpart, a dark and terrifying creature of nightmare. Rey embraced the role, so the fact that the girl knew her name was troubling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh...I'm taking some creative liberties at how freely and casually the Force can be used. I like to indulge my fantasies and telekinetic powers really are the best thing to add to like every scene.


	6. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the author note in my last chapter, Kylo is definitely the more emotional of the two of them, especially compared to Rey’s ferociousness.

It’d been two whole days since Rey caught the escaped rebel prisoner and Hux was pulling all of his power so Kylo couldn’t interrogate her. It was ludicrous and bordering on treason. If the girl was resourceful, the information she had could turn the tides of the war.

General Hux should be someone who understood that.

Kylo took out his frustrations in a trooper training room, filled with battle droids who fell like paper under the strike of his saber. No one dared enter the room as he tore apart countless millions in credits.

Eight more machines crowded around him, programed just enough to evade and give him a bit of a challenge. He sliced them all down, the floor scorched with marks from the tip of his lightsaber.

The last droid fell and, sensing an unwelcome arrival, Kylo crossed his arm over his chest and then flung out his weapon toward the entrance. He turned just in time to see the saber hover mid-air, inches from Rey’s face. Straightening his back, Kylo called it back to his hand as Rey pulled her hilt from its place at her side.

“Rough day?” she asked, walking away from the columns framing the entrance. She twisted her double-hilt apart and both blades ignited in her hands. “Would you rather pick on someone your own size?”

He stood there, chest heaving, mind whirling. She had been acting strangely the last two days as well. She was  _ trying _ too hard, and she wouldn’t tell him about the dreams that continued to wake her in the middle of the night. He tilted his head. “Those are my size,” he pointed out before he attacked.

She was ready, both blades crossing above her to block. The blades slid against each other with sparks and she ducked and spun, using her smaller stature to slip away. He twisted around, swinging, his arm span and length of the blade reaching far enough to slice through the air just millimeters from her nose. Rey swung out and the weapons clashed again as a new set of droids entered the room.

The droids were no more than a mild annoyance to them both. They fell into piles of charred metal as the two simultaneously turned their lightsabers on each other. Rey ducked to the ground again to cut the legs off a droid, collapsed one of her blades and clicked the hilts together all in one fluid motion. Both hilts together were nearly two feet and gave her extra range and leverage to compensate for her shorter height.

She spun and Kylo blocked her, pushing her back with gritted teeth and sweating face. Rey bared her teeth right back as the sparking light from their blades bathed them in red. With a blink, Rey pushed back hard and swung out, catching his shoulder with the tip of her blade. He hissed and she stepped back, twirling her blade and circling him from far enough away that he couldn’t reach.

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” she asked, her breathing labored. She was enjoying this. So was he. Nothing could compete with their skills pitted against one another.

Kylo flicked is hair back and pointed at her with his blade. “Only if you tell me why you’re barely sleeping.”

Rey frowned. Instead of answering, she charged at him, blade high. He grabbed her wrist and she grabbed his as well. They stood in a stalemate, bodies close, anger coursing through their veins. His blade cut into the ground. Hux was going to be irate at all of the damage. A tiny part of Kylo was smug about that.

Finally, Rey’s blade disappeared and she used his tight hold on her to pull him down a bit closer. She pressed her lips to his neck and then shoved him away. With the distraction, she hooked her foot around his ankle and yanked. The floor slipped out from under him and Kylo landed heavily on his back on the ground, Rey’s blade pointed at his neck.

“Why haven’t you interrogated the prisoner?” she asked. She must have sensed something from him. 

Kylo swallowed hard, his blade extinguished, the hilt gripped in his bare hand. “Hux is using his ranking to keep me from her.”

Rey frowned, her eyes wild. “His  _ ranking _ ?” She stepped back, her free hand in a tight fist, her blade held dangerously in the other. Kylo stayed where he was. “ _ You  _ are Kylo Ren.  _ You _ are the grandson of Darth Vader. No one tells you what you can’t do.” She shook with furious disappointment in him. With a shake of her head, she collapsed her blade and set the hilt at her hip.

She started to walk away, stepping around the burned corpses of droids. Kylo lay there against the cold floor before lumbering to his feet. “Rey,” he called out behind her. She didn’t wait, and he rolled his wounded shoulder as he followed her out into the wide hall. He caught her arm to physically stop her.

They stood close and he didn’t say a thing, not until she told him what was bothering her. It was unlike her to be rattled by  _ anything _ , not like this.

“She knew who I was,” Rey said finally, her head tilted up to meet his eyes.

He thought that was kind of the point. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“She knew my  _ name _ , Kylo,” Rey pressed. She swallowed, her jaw clenched. They both knew little of her past. Snoke found her very young and took her away, unlike Kylo, who began his training with Luke Skywalker and was a teenager when Snoke finally took him in as an apprentice. “What if I was part of the Resistance? What if my family were rebels?”

She looked more disgusted than anything at the prospect.

“The past doesn’t matter,” he said, though they both knew it was a lie. He of all people knew the importance of the past, especially when it came to a person’s inner balance.

She frowned a little. “But what if it  _ does _ ?”

Kylo had no answer for that. He studied her face for a moment before he let go of her and walked away with fast strides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An hour later, the halls filled with the echoing screams of the rebel girl. She tried to resist, but no one could resist the Force. Hux came down the hall, red faced and furious. His fury was child’s play in comparison to Kylo’s.

“You had no right to interrogate that prisoner,” the General said with narrow eyes.

Kylo stopped, his face hidden behind his mask. “She had information I needed. I took it.”

“You weren’t authorized!” The last word came out in a gurgle as Kylo lifted a hand to choke the red haired military leader. The handful of officers who had accompanied Hux to the interrogation floor said nothing, though he saw them shift uncomfortably and pretend that they weren’t watching what he was doing.

Once Hux looked as if he were about to fall unconscious, Kylo let him go. He staggered, clutching his throat and leaning against the wall for support.

“That girl knows the location of a rebellion base that is harboring the location of Luke Skywalker,” Kylo said. “Do I have your  _ authorization _ to take a fleet to Jakku, General?”

Hux glared at Kylo. “Yes,” he croaked out.

Kylo turned and walked away. None of the officers looked at him, avoiding him like he was a sun who would burn out their eyes. They weren’t too far from the truth.

He walked to his chambers, knowing he would find Rey there, to give her the answers he’d taken from the Resistance girl. She sat in the hard backed chair in the corner, dressed in trousers and little else. Her feet were bare, her chest lightly bound with cloth. Her hair was loose and metal beads danced an orbit around her fingers.

“I heard the screams,” she said as the door slid shut behind him. She tilted her head back so she could see him out of the corner of her vision. She scoffed. “Take off the mask.” There was no tenderness in her voice.

“Take off the mask,” he echoed, though he made no move to do so. Underneath, he clenched his jaw, and fisted his gloved hand.

“ _ Yes _ ,” she said, turning the chair around loudly, metal against smooth floors. The balls in her hand spread and circled him now, like antagonizing insects. “You don’t need it.”

He moved quickly, before she could react. His hand reached for her throat, though while the fabric of his glove touched her skin, he couldn’t do more than that. She stared at him defiantly, into the depths of the black indentations in his mask covering his eyes.

She threw words at him that echoed that of his father’s last words. She was the only other person alive who knew what those were.

She didn’t even flinch.

“You are  _ not _ Darth Vader,” she said, her voice deadly still. “Be  _ better _ than he was. I know you can.”

She called her orbs back and they fell into her palm. He nudged her chin upward with his hand, staring at her face before he let go.

“You can be more powerful than he was. I know you want it.” She got to her feet and put a hand against the helmet. “You want it, so you  _ take it _ .”

Rey had a way of getting through to him, though her methods were questionable at times. He let a heavy breath out through his nose, knowing she was right. “I’m going to Jakku,” he said finally, lifting his hand to touch her face a bit more gently. “There is a lead on Luke Skywalker there.”

They had already discussed the fact that she  _ was _ going with him. There was no way she couldn’t, not without both of them suffering the wrath of the Supreme Leader.

“You got that from the girl?” A spark of ambition brought life to Rey’s eyes.

“Yes,” he said, lifting his hands to take off his helmet. He turned away from her to set it down.

She moved swiftly, standing on the bed and grabbing his shoulders. “Did you search for anything about me?”

On the mattress, she was a few inches taller than he. “Yes. She’s not human, an ageless being. She remembered a young girl, a toddler, named Rey. I saw flashes of her memories but all children look the same, small with round faces. It could have been anyone.”

“But was it  _ me _ ?” She dug her nails into thick layers of fabric.

He hesitated. “I don’t know for sure.” She frowned and stepped away, pacing on the mattress, biting down on a thumbnail. “Rey is a common name.”

“And I have a common face?” She arched an eyebrow at him.

“Of course not. The woman’s been kept in deplorable conditions, running for her life...she must have been delirious.”

Rey scoffed, before she stopped suddenly, frozen to the spot. Her face told him everything he needed to know: her mind was whirling, working things out, putting pieces together. He turned away just as she spoke again, “Have you ever felt a pull to the light?”

He stopped short, his back to her, in his— _ their— _ dark room, on a First Order Star Destroyer, on a quest to kill his family. The air grew thick with fear and subversion.

“Get yourself ready,” he said, voice cold.

He left her standing still on the unmade bed, her slender fingers pressed against her mouth, eyes wide, shocked that such words had even come out of her mouth.


	7. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we mix in some elements from TFA!

Rey spent the entire trip to Jakku quiet. She and Kylo shared a ship, with a squadron of twenty stormtroopers to join them. They were attacking a village that was harboring rebel fugitives, and with Rey and Kylo both there, there was no need to bring any more troopers. Rey was looking forward to the destruction and death.

She was silent, and the few officers and the pilot on their ship did their best to stay out of her way and out of her sight. She and Kylo hadn’t spoken since he left the room on Hux’s Star Destroyer. She saw him, with his helmet in place, a handful of times, but he hadn’t spoken to her.

There was really no reason for her to ask _that_ . They both knew that, once upon a time, Kylo was raised on the side of the light by his uncle.  But Kylo chose the right side, with Snoke’s influence, to join the dark side, where he belonged. Snoke distrusted Kylo’s passion for the dark, but Rey saw it in him and spent nearly every minute of her life making sure he stayed on the darkside. It was _there_ , he _had it_. She knew he did. Because if he didn’t?

She bit down on the inside of her mouth so hard she tasted copper. She wanted to _scream_ , but she couldn’t do that here. She had to show a little bit of control.

Rey spun the hilt of her saber in her hands, swaying on her feet as the ship steadied below the thin atmosphere on the desert planet. It was dark down here, and Kylo’s ship followed the other two half-filled with the troopers with their floodlights scanning the ground.

All she desired was for her weapon to taste the fresh blood of rebel flesh. She needed to harness her anger and failure and fuel it toward the attack.

She caught her breath when Kylo arrived near her, dressed in black head to toe, not a single sliver of pale skin showing. He said nothing even as the ramp came down and he stepped out first, into the village.

There were fires, screams, yells, blaster beams in every direction. A stormtrooper corpse was laid out right at her feet as she walked off the ramp, her lightsaber igniting as she stepped onto the scorched ground. Her eyes scanned the fight: the remains of the camp, rebels still _breathing_.

She ground her teeth together and jumped into the fray. The troopers knew not to stand in her way. She would take one of them down if it meant she could end the life of a Resistance fighter. A war cry left her lips as she spun her singular blade to block a blaster attack and used the Force to yank a fighter over a barricade he was hiding behind. She swung her weapon over her head and brought it down hard across the man’s chest, slicing deep into his chest cavity.

There was a huge blast as a partially hidden X-Wing was hit by a hydroblaster. Sparks and flames flew into the air with a wave of heat. Rey flushed out the remainder of the rebels. The First Order never called her in if they wanted prisoners. There remained a handful on their knees across the village, where she saw the tall, imposing form of Kylo.

She took the life of an old man, a harsh stab through the chest. He fell to the ground still gasping for breath for one, two seconds before he settled. Rey was still _seething_ , but she took it out on one of the few buildings in the village that was made of stone and not just a canvas tent. She let go of her anger in a fiery spin of her saber, both ends ignited until the walls were crisp and black and everything inside was destroyed.

Chest heaving, she walked into the cooler night air and shook out her dominant hand. Her knuckles ached from the pressure of clinging to the hilt so desperately.

A man’s agonizing yell met her ears, followed by the muffled screams of women and a wail of a child. Wiping a hand across her sweaty and dusty face, Rey walked closer to Kylo’s bunch.

He wasn’t waiting for General Hux’s orders now.

Kylo had a dark-haired man, a pilot by the looks of his jacket, yanked to his feet by the Force and was forcing himself into his mind.

Rey let out a sigh of relief at the direct approach he was taking to the situation. This was about finding Luke Skywalker, about finishing what he started with the death of his father. The screams from the rebel were like music to her ears.

There was still dark in him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Three years ago_

Rey’s eyes hardened as she watched the scene below. The red of Kylo’s lightsaber faded and Han Solo fell off of the catwalk. He stood there afterward, his face wet with tears that he wiped away with a large, gloved hand.

She stood, far above from her vantage point. Supreme Leader told her to be here as witness, but what she witnessed wasn’t as it should have been.

A shot rang out from somewhere she couldn’t see. She flinched instinctively and saw that Kylo was hit. Not fatally, by the look of it, and he was probably saved by the rumble deep within the base. A tall, furry creature—a Wookiee?—appeared in her vision and Kylo followed.

Rey, her newly minted saber in hand, followed both of them into the forest. Kylo was slower because of his injury, and Rey caught up with him quickly, just as a large ship took off in the air above them, zipping off into the night as the ground beneath them trembled.

“Kylo!” she yelled. The air was filled with white noise, a noise whose origins she could pinpoint. It clouded her senses.

He whipped around at her voice, his lightsaber still in hand. “What are you doing here?” She wondered if she was hearing things wrong or if his voice was laced with genuine concern for her? Was it because the Starkiller base was about to combust?

The wind whipped her hair around, into her face. “You killed your father,” she said. His shoulders fell slightly, his eyes lost in the darkness of the lifeless forest. “You hesitated.”

“No I didn’t!” he yelled.

Rey narrowed her eyes at him, her finger moving to the trigger on her hilt. One of the blades ignited, bright red. “You’re supposed to be more powerful than I am,” she said, her voice as cold as the snow on the ground. “How could you show such weakness?”

“Weakness?” He stomped his foot, and slammed a fist against his side. “I just killed my father!”

“You hesitated!” she growled back. She didn’t even mention the tears following the conflict of emotion she had witnessed. The version of Kylo she knew would never show such sentiment.

“You wouldn’t understand. You don’t have a family. You have no one.”

Rey stood there, the snow under the tip of her lightsaber hissing and melting, trying to contain her rage. But it was impossible. With a fierce yell, she swung at him. His blade caught hers just before it could have done damage. He twisted his wrist and it, in turn, twisted her shoulder with a sharp jolt of pain. She yanked her arm back and he stumbled backward.

Spots of blood marked the ground from the wound at his side.

Rey took in her surroundings quickly before charging again. Their fight had none of the finesse of their usual spars. This was heavy handed, hard hitting, with trees sliced and toppling around them. The heat from the excess exhaust vents at his saber’s hilt burned her shoulder until she kicked at his knee and ducked away.

The pain helped fuel her power, as it always did.

With a wordless snarl, she attacked him without holding back, cutting his arm and adding to the blood on the ground. While he gasped for air from the numerous wounds, she ran up a slope to higher ground.

“Rey!” He yelled her name so loudly that she jumped. She spun around just in time to duck and block his long range. He kept her backing up until the ground split, just inches away.

With her back arched and their blades locked together dangerously close to her face, Kylo leaned in, a languid anger in his eyes. Rey’s eyes, however, were filled with malice.

“Family means _nothing_ ,” she said, her voice low. “Power is everything. Strength is everything. Passion for the dark means more than any family.”

He let out a small, dry laugh. “You don’t know anything.”

Calculations flashed through her mind within seconds. She and Kylo were the chosen ones, the most powerful of the Knights of Ren and Supreme Leader was wasting no time pitting them against one another. If it meant that Rey could step one foot closer to becoming a master, she would do _anything_.

With a yell and push of raw power, she slipped out of the locked blades and swiftly moved away from the gaping chasm. Once again, she came at him hard and fierce, leaving a shallow cut on his thigh. He could barely stand. She stabbed his other shoulder and he stumbled back.

He still held onto his blade, but Rey could see that he was weakening. Fueled with rage at his lack of apathy about killing his father, his demeaning words toward her, the burning pain in her own arm...Rey advanced on him like a predator.

It was exhilarating getting the upper hand on him, seeing his hand shake, his body taking one too many hits.

With a two-handed grip, she brought her lightsaber above her head and straight down. He barely had time to block it and she used his slowness to lift her leg and kick him back, her foot making contact with the bloody wound at his side from the Wookiee’s bowcaster.

He fell without grace and scooted back from her as she circled him.

“How can you be the Supreme Leader’s favorite?” She frowned as he forced himself to his feet, doubled over with pain and exhaustion.

He made that wry laugh sound again. “You don’t know anything,” he repeated before he swung.

She blocked it, forcing his arm out to the side. He lost hold of his weapon and the hilt landed in the snow. With him defenseless, Rey swung her lightsaber upward, slashing through his clothes at his chest, the tip slicing across his face.

He landed back on the snow and lay there, gasping.

The snow swirled around her as the rage in her settled. She took deep breaths as the planet-sized base trembled once more, alerting her to its nearing demise. Another crack in the surface snapped through the air nearby. Rey turned, collapsing her saber and putting it into its holster on her belt.

“Kylo, we have to leave,” she said, her brain blocking out most of the aggression she had just laid out. Turning around, she saw he still hadn’t moved from the snow and the last swipe of her blade came rocketing into memory.

She cursed under her breath and scrambled for his lightsaber hilt before kneeling next to him. His clothes were singed, his face was bloody. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her own weakness slipping through. Her mind had a tendency to block out these tiny moments of humanity and lock them away. Hypocritical, she knew.

He grunted, so at least he was alive. She helped him stand, though he leaned heavily on her, staining her grey clothes with blood. “My ship is nearby,” she said, pulling him along as the base cracked beneath their feet. More than once she had to use the Force to propel them forward to escape the collapsing core.

_Carnage_ sat small in the snow. She had gotten the ship when she was turned fifteen. By then, she could fly circles around every pilot in the garrison. The only person who could compare to her skill as a pilot was Kylo.

“Come on, come on,” she hurried Kylo along as the base began to crumble underfoot. He landed heavily inside and she crawled over his bleeding form to the pilot’s seat. She got them off the ground just moments before the ground gave way beneath them.

A few hours later, back on the Star Destroyer, Rey made her way through the quiet halls. The First Order had lost a great weapon against the rebel forces. Everyone was quiet until their leaders granted them permission to move forward with a new plan.

Rey had no interest in such plans.

Her goals were much more self-serving.

There were the top medics in the galaxy on this ship. She had paced by the front of one of the numerous infirmary rooms onboard since she’d dragged a barely conscious Kylo Ren off of her ship, but she hadn’t gone in. Instead, she watched and waited until she was sure he was awake before slipping inside.

It was dark, the medic droids were gone and Kylo was the only patient. There was only a little bit of light in the room, and he was laid out on an uncomfortable looking medical bed, with bandages over the freshest wounds until the healing skins could be added. Rey’s burnt shoulder still stung and was under a bandage as well, though her pain was minimal compared to the massive wound she’d inflicted.

“I was wondering when you’d come.” His voice jolted her out of her reverie.

She blinked and met his eyes. She wanted to say it again— _I’m sorry_ —but once was enough. “I didn’t think you were standing so close,” she said instead, walking close enough that the backs of their hands practically touched. The wound on his face was angry and red, silver and black covering the fresh flesh beneath. She wondered if it hurt to talk.

“I think you knew how close I was.”

Was he…joking? She sucked in a breath through her teeth. “When I get intensely angry I tend to forget who I am,” she confessed, her voice low. She may be Snoke’s apprentice, but Kylo was quickly becoming her closest confidant.

“Rage is important when you’re fighting the enemy.”

“You’re not my enemy,” she whispered. Snoke thought they were. There was no doubt in either of their minds that he intended to have one of them kill the other. Which one did the killing was all up to the two of them and their actions.

Kylo touched her hand, gingerly at first, and then with more purpose. Rey didn’t know how to feel, something swelling in her chest that she didn’t have words for. This was entirely different from the past months of sparring and training. Their bodies touched while they fought together against a common enemy, yes, but not like this.

“You’re his favorite,” Kylo said finally.

Her eyes, which had drifted to the angriest skin at his collarbone, snapped up to meet his dark, sad eyes. “What?”

“When I said you didn’t know anything…you’re Supreme Leader’s favorite apprentice,” he explained.

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No. Why would he choose me over you?”

“He’s trained you since you were just a small child. You’ve never been…corrupted by the light,” he said the last words carefully, with tired emotion. She didn’t feel disgusted by the display.

Rey swallowed hard and lifted her hand to gently push her fingertips through his hair before she lost her nerve. She _liked_ this, quite a bit, this closeness. “You’re stronger than me.”

“Not for long,” he said, accepting defeat.

It was in that moment that they decided that they wouldn’t play into Snoke’s hands anymore. They wouldn’t work against each other, but they would work _with_ each other. They would become more powerful than he could imagine, and then they would take what was theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obligatory childish “yes you did!” “no I didn’t!” screaming match mwahahaha


	8. Kylo

Kylo swept onto the plane, the four prisoners being carted into the trooper’s dropship nearby. He passed by Rey, who was standing at the base of the ramp, a serene look on her face that he knew only came after she’d just lost herself entirely over to her rage.

He stopped in front of her and she looked up at him, a spark of something behind her gaze that he thoroughly wanted to investigate. “Do you feel like taking a trip?” he asked.

She arched an eyebrow. “Where to?”

“To catch the  _ Millennium Falcon _ .”

The corner of her mouth curved up. “In this?” She nodded toward his command shuttle that they’d come down in. It was a pretty stellar ship, equipped with weapons systems and shielding. Her tiny ship was unfit for any long missions, but Kylo’s was appropriately black and overly powered.

He nodded to her once and stepped aboard. She followed. He walked to the cabin and dismissed the pilot, who was a smart man who didn’t protest but merely got out of the seat with his copilot. They walked off the ship, leaving it to just Kylo and Rey.

The ramp closed the two off from the rest of the planet and Kylo pulled off his helmet. Rey watched him carefully, her gaze intense and wide. It had been a very long time since they were alone, just the two of them.

“I’ve had visions,” she said, once she could see his face. The recent conversation back on the Star Destroyer, hours old, still felt like a sting to them both. “Visions of…” she frowned, her hand gripping the back of the captain’s seat tightly. “Of the light.”

He blinked, putting all of the pieces together. That would explain her distant behavior. “What were the visions?”

She shook her head, searching for words. “Splintered pieces of myself, all making different choices. Choices for myself, choices for you, choices for people whose faces I don’t recognize.”

He understood what she was trying to say. He recalled the multitudes of visions and thoughts pushed into his head by Snoke, a galaxy away, prodding him toward the deep, inviting darkness.

“My path has always been completely clear,” she continued, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. “I’ve never had…doubts.”

But he had.

“It was that woman,” Rey said. “The one from the Resistance. She must have done something. You said she wasn’t human.” She stepped forward and gripped his wrist, her fingers sliding under his sleeve, touching his bare skin. Her fingers were red hot against his cold flesh.

“Thoughts are powerful. They can twist themselves into doubt and conflict.”

She frowned, a little wrinkle forming between her eyes. She so desperately wanted him to tell her that she wasn’t being tempted by the light. She was  _ always _ on the side of the dark; she was proud of it, it was all that she knew. Her resolve rarely wavered, and when it did, it was tiny things, like when she spoke an apology to him or when she looked at him a bit too softly. She then snapped back so quickly it was as if it had never happened in the first place. 

He couldn’t tell her that the balance wasn’t as easy as just  _ being dark _ . There was still time for their conflicts to return and turn them both. He had been struggling with that his entire life. Rey had too, on a smaller scale.

She didn’t seem to quite know what to say to that and so she lifted a hand to brush across the fabric covering his newest wound inflicted by her as her form an apology. “I’ll do anything for you,” she told him, as if that was ever in question.

“I know.” His tone was sad and conflicted.

She looked at him with her face open, eyes wide and young. “Tell me what to do to fix this,” she said quietly.

It didn’t matter if she was talking about their relationship or her conflict or his. There was only one thing they could do now.

“I know where the  _ Falcon _ is,” he said, his voice taking on the edge he used when on mission.

Rey stared at his lips for a moment before she stepped back, gathering up her emotions and tucking them away before sitting in the captain’s seat. They were both fine pilots, but they knew that Rey was better suited for this trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“How did it get back here?” Rey asked as Kylo’s ship fell from hyperspace near Takodana. The planet was small, but lush. There was an ugly scar they could see from above from the recent battle.

No one shot at the ship as it sliced through the atmosphere.

“It’s the last place we would expect,” Kylo said, standing and leaning toward the windows to see the planet. “Over there,” he directed her to the opposite side of the planet as the crumbled ruins of Maz Kanata’s once grand fortress.

Rey steered the ship and set them down on a flat bit of land beside a lake. The surface of the planet was nothing but green and blue. Kylo pulled on his helmet as he stepped out, cape catching in the wind as he stepped onto the damp grass. Rey followed, her hoods down, two metal orbs in her palm for quick attacks if necessary.

Neither of them carried blasters. There was something dishonorable about taking down an enemy with a ranged weapon.

“This way,” he said.

Rey followed as he moved away from the ship toward the forest. Birds rustled in the trees and small animals scurried away from them as they walked, figures in black through the serenity of nature. Kylo saw, as he used a tree for balance to carefully slide down an incline, that Rey’s metal beads now danced around her body like protectors. Something squawked loudly nearby, the sound cut off quickly as Rey sent one of them through the small creature’s body with nothing more than a casual blink.

Kylo continued onward.

The  _ Falcon _ had been landed well, hidden between the swell of a small mountain and a shallow creek that pooled into a small pond at the base. The ship was perfectly set down by a skilled hand.

“Should I stay here?” Rey asked, her voice small.

Kylo had already told Rey what he found from the rebel pilot on Jakku. The  _ Falcon  _ was hiding a BB model droid with the location to Luke Skywalker. It would be simple enough to retrieve the droid and destroy the ship, which was why he wanted to head out immediately.

“Find the droid,” he told her, reaching for his lightsaber.

She nodded, taking a few steps away toward the shallowest point in the creek. Her boots sloshed through the water.

From behind the cover of the thick forest trees, a powerful blast from a bowcaster cut through the air. Kylo barely had time to lift a hand and stop the beam mid air before it hit Rey. She ducked a moment later and he let go of the beam. It shattered some of the rock at the base of the mountain.

“Go!” Kylo yelled to Rey as a Wookiee stepped out from the trees with a loud roar that Kylo only half understood. Chewbacca was his father’s companion and Kylo only saw him as much as he saw Han. It wasn’t much.

He saw Rey disappear into the ship as Chewbacca turned his weapon on Kylo once again. Kylo managed to bend the plasma beam away from him. It hit the creek and water exploded all around them, misting down like rain. Kylo was forced backward into the creek as the Wookiee tossed aside his weapon and came at him with inhuman strength.

With one furry paw, Chewbacca batted Kylo in the chest and swiped his lightsaber away. Both fell into the water. Kylo’s ribs felt instantly bruised and he gasped for air as the beast loomed over him, tilting his head back and letting out a roar of pain and anger. 

In some twisted design, Kylo’s mind filled with fragments of memories of a childhood long past:

On the  _ Falcon _ , sitting on Chewy’s knee as a boy.

Being hiked up onto the Wookiee’s shoulder and running around after the other kids on Chandrila.

Chewy teaching him how to work a child-sized blaster.

“Kylo!” Rey’s voice cut through to him in the present. Mere milliseconds past in which Chewbacca decided to kill him, Rey tossed him her lightsaber, and it fell into his palm like it belonged, igniting and cutting directly into the arm socket of the Wookiee.

Chewbacca cried out and stumbled back as Kylo got to his feet, water cascading off of his clothes and dripping down his face in the mask.

Lightsabers were fueled by crystals that bonded strongly with their users. Using another’s weapon was supposed to feel left-of-center, however Kylo found it the opposite between himself and Rey. He felt a powerful surge of inexplicable energy in the times when they swapped weapons.

Teeth gritted beneath his mask, Kylo wasted no time with words. He moved forward, striking and cutting, the air filling with the scent of singed fur until the final blow slashed the Wookiee across the chest.

Chewbacca’s signature sash fell heavily into the water just moments before the creature’s large body followed.

Kylo, chest heaving with the lasting effects of the punch, stepped onto the grass, collapsing Rey’s lightsaber and pulling off his helmet. He stood there, gasping for breath that couldn’t quite fill his lungs. He watched his hands shake until he could breathe properly. A mechanical squeal from inside drew his attention.

He stepped into the relic of a ship, ducking under the low entrance. Rey wasn’t far inside, his own blade in her hand, a round white and orange droid cut in half in front of her. She extinguished his unstable blade and crouched down to pry off a piece of the droid, yanking out a small portable device.

Sensing him, she turned and held it up between two fingers. It was a tiny thing, but the fact that it existed at all laid a heavy burden on Kylo’s shoulders.

“You look terrible,” she said, the triumphant smile on her face falling.

Words spoken years ago haunted him now, standing in this living mausoleum of memory.  _ You have too much of your father’s heart in you, young Solo _ .

When he was here within these walls last, he was Ben Solo, a name and person he’d tried to forget for years.

The mask and Rey’s lightsaber fell from his grasp, landing heavily and loudly on the floor of the ship. There was a moment before he reached her that she tucked the port into her belt and dropped his lightsaber hilt. She lifted her arms, sliding her hands around his biceps as his own hands landed heavy against her ribs, circling around her smaller frame.

Rey pushed herself up onto her toes to meet his lips. Hers were soft against his and he kissed her gently until a sudden desperation welled up inside of him. She let out a tiny yelp that was lost in his mouth as he backed her up against a wall. She pushed away his heavy, water-logged cape and gripped his damp hair in tiny fists.

A few choice pieces of clothing were haphazardly stripped away. They tripped and stumbled their way to one of the many small bunk nooks. Kylo lifted Rey to the edge and she tugged his pants down and circled her legs around his hips, pulling him close. She kissed his neck and he dug his fingertips into the thin layers of fabric covering her torso.

Everything became sloppy. Every kiss, every shallow thrust and fisting of hair in their hands. Kylo’s forehead pressed against the side of her neck, one ungloved hand clutching her hip, the other he used to brace himself against the bunk.

Not even her hot skin, her scent, the feeling of being inside of her could ease the shattered remains of his internal torment. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay upon editing that last line is So Dramatic but also super Kylo, so I'm allowing it to stay.
> 
> Also I killed BB-8 and Chewbacca....I know, I know. I'm a terrible person.


	9. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't notice, I've been editing these on my own, so I apologize if there are any blatant mistakes. They're hard to catch in your own writing and I don't have a beta.
> 
> And to all of you reading and commenting, thanks so much! Even the tiniest comment can make my day so much better.

Rey kicked aside part of the droid on her way to her lightsaber near the entrance of the  _ Falcon _ . She always felt more like herself with the weight of it hanging heavily from her hip. She spent so long staring down at the black and silver helmet on the floor next to it that Kylo managed to sneak up on her. He laid her thick cloak over her shoulders, causing her to jump.

“What are you going to do about the ship?” she asked. She had never in her life felt the kind of uncertainty that had been coursing through her veins for the past three days. She didn’t know  _ how _ someone with a will as strong as her own could be so affected by such a small action, but here she was, feeling a volley of emotions she had never been prepared for.

Kylo bent down to pick up his helmet and then looked around what they could see of the ship from the entrance. To Rey, it was just yet another ship, one poorly put together, especially compared to the ships she was used to seeing and piloting. She wondered how it had stood a chance against  _ Carnage _ .

“Leave it,” he said.

She turned to him sharply. “ _ Leave it _ ?” A tiny bubble of outrage settled in her chest.

He looked around again, the grip on his helmet making his gloves creak. “Destroy the cockpit, leave the ship to rot,” he explained as if it were something they’d agreed upon earlier.

Rey met his eyes and nodded. He walked forward, heading toward corridors she assumed were familiar to him. Biting down hard on the inside of her cheek, she poked around the common area in the middle of the ship. As tempted as she was to put the port into the holodeck in the middle of the room, it wasn’t her place to do so.

She did find, however, that a seat cushion appeared to have been removed recently. Frowning, she walked over and shoved it aside. Inside were a handful of what appeared to be books, physical books with paper and bindings. She reached for one just as she heard the explosive sound of Kylo destroying the controls. Swallowing hard, she shoved the seat cover back on and made it to the entrance ramp just as he did.

He walked out without a word. Rey’s jaw clenched as her eyes crossed the large, wet form of the dead Wookiee lying across the creek. She followed Kylo across and through the forest. Kylo’s command ship was still sitting where they left it.

“Should we look at this now?” she asked once they were sealed inside. She reached around the beads in her pouch at her hip and pulled out the small rectangle that held the answers that the First Order and the Resistance both had been searching for for decades.

Kylo came to stand next to her in front of the sleek and new holodeck, a stark contrast to the one on the  _ Falcon _ . “Skywalker is mine to defeat,” he said, enveloping her hand and the port with his own. “If the First Order finds out about this…”

He didn’t have to say it. If the First Order found out the location of the last Jedi, Hux would send legions to destroy him and Kylo would never be able to complete the test that Snoke laid out before him.

“Does this ship have a closed-circuit?” Rey asked, though, knowing it was Kylo’s ship there were measures against anyone else being able to break into its system.

He nodded once and took the port from her. She stood back and watched as the display booted up, inputting the data she’d taken from the BB droid. It was a complicated star map that spread out far beyond the confines of the table.

“Where is that?” Rey squinted, following the lines between the planets. Even for a simple map, it was complicated.

“Ahch-To,” Kylo said, his voice barely audible.

She had never heard of such a place before. Before she could ask, Kylo yanked the port out of the machine and handed it back to her.

“You want me to  _ keep _ this?” It would be like walking around with a bomb or a target on her back. “Can’t we just memorize the map and destroy it? Kylo?”

He ignored her, walking to the pilot seat and starting up the engines.

“Are we going there now?” she asked, clutching the tiny device in her hands.

The command ship lifted off from the ground.

“No,” Kylo said. “We’re going back to the  _ Finalizer _ . Snoke wants to speak with us.”

The thought of facing Supreme Leader Snoke even through holographic projection made her skin cold. She tried to remember and harness the same apathetic ferocity she let lose while on Jakku, to remember that part of her, the part that knew exactly who she was and what she was to do.

She sat improperly in the copilot’s seat, her back digging painfully into the right armrest while her knees were hooked over the other so she could watch Kylo. His hair was still damp, though the top layer was dry and catching the light from the planet before they blasted out of the atmosphere.

Had his eyes always been so deep and sad, or was it her newfound emotional turmoil that made her see it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kylo’s ship was a pebble compared to the enormous size of Hux’s Star Destroyer. They docked and reset their clothes. Belts fixed, cloaks smoothed out over shoulders. Rey fixed her hair and Kylo’s helmet was put into place.

They were met with an entourage of six stormtroopers. They didn’t usually have anyone leading them from one place to another. Rey resisted the urge to glance up at Kylo, squared her shoulders and walked forward. The troopers followed them, as if their duty was to make sure they didn’t make a run for it.

If the two Force users did intend to do such a thing, why would they have come back here? They were already on a ship, they could have stolen it and flown far, far away.

The troopers stayed behind as they both got into the elevator that led to the secure and separate floor in the middle of the ship where Snoke projected himself at an enormous height. The doors closed and Rey let out a soft breath, her lips parting. She once again tried to imagine a steely resolve: she thought about the strength she had in the Force, of the hundreds of lives taken by the blade at her side, and the years of plotting silently with Kylo to take their rightful places at the top of hierarchy.

As the doors opened, a wall of darkness had fallen behind her eyes and she did, in fact, feel that she was without conflict.

They walked side-by-side and stood on the only bit of light in the room, a round disk of light at the end of the walkway, before the projection Supreme Leader.

“There is a difference between initiative and treason,” Snoke said, his voice enormous and unstable.

Rey, her eyes downcast at the black floor, held her breath.

“Tell me what happened,” Snoke finished, motioning only toward her.

She stepped forward, her hands clasped behind her, beneath her cloak. “We traveled to Jakku in search of a map that would lead us to Luke Skywalker,” she said, her voice even. “The village was slaughtered, many by my own hand. Kylo interrogated a Resistance pilot and used the information to find a droid hidden away that was holding the map.”

“And did you find it?”

“We found the droid aboard the  _ Millennium Falcon _ .” She carefully evaded answering him about the map. She had  _ seen it _ , he could easily force his way into her mind to see if she was withholding information.

Something twitched in Snoke’s face at the mention of the ship. His focus turned then onto Kylo and he dismissed Rey. She turned on her heel and left, the port with the map feeling like it was burning into her skin from its hiding place at her belt.

She kept up her stoic expression all the way to her rooms, which were vast and dark. She collapsed on the bed. She didn’t trust herself to take the port out and hide it anywhere else but on her person. She held herself up on her arms until her wrists ached and her bones shook.

Finally, she pushed herself off the bed and into her washroom, where she stripped down and ran a bath. The water was too hot when she settled into it, dipping completely under the surface. She yelled, letting go of all of the air in her lungs before bursting through the surface.

It was more satisfying than yelling into a pillow or just yelling in general.

She scrubbed at her skin, trying to rid herself of the soft emotions that swirled around in her veins. They were feelings that would get her killed. She was  _ so close _ to becoming a true master of the dark, how could she have let this happen?

Not long after, once she was dressed in clean, black clothes, Rey pulled her hair back in a single bun, slid her saber at her waist, checked that the droid’s port was still there, and walked out of her empty chambers.

She headed toward the cells.

The troopers set to watch the Resistance prisoners were lounging until she came into view.

“Ma’am,” they said, unsure of how to address her. She was accustomed to it.

“Is General Hux’s special prisoner still here?” she asked. She wasn’t interested in the pilot, two women and small child they’d taken in from Jakku. She wanted to see that white haired woman who claimed to know her. “The one who escaped her cell.”

The guards glanced between them. “Yes,” one of them said finally.

Rey waited and then she laid her hand on the hilt of her lightsaber. “Are you going to take me to her, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?” She narrowed her eyes at them.

The one who had spoken scrambled to his feet and walked her through three sets of doors. In that last stretch of cells, they were all empty except for one. The white haired woman in tattered clothes looked like a beacon of light in the dark.

Rey’s lip curled at the imagery.

“Leave us,” she snarled at the guard. He didn’t hesitate and left immediately.

She didn’t move forward until the door fully closed behind him. The young woman was sitting crosslegged in a corner, her eyes closed and head bowed, hands clasped in her lap. Her lips moved with quiet words that must have been some type of prayer.

Rey clenched her teeth and stepped forward. “You,” she said sharply. The girl didn’t move, though her words came out marginally faster. Rey lifted a hand and banged it against the thick metal bars. “Hey!”

The prisoner lifted her hands to her face, pressed her thumbs to her forehead and finally looked up at Rey. Her face was much calmer than the last time the two women had met. She appeared a little shaky on her feet as she stood; probably residual weakness from Kylo’s interrogation a day earlier.

“Hello,” she said, as if this were a casual meeting. She walked directly up to the bars and slipped her pale hands around it. Rey stepped backward instinctively. Kylo told her that the woman, though she looked younger than Rey, was ageless and had already surpassed a normal human lifespan.

“Who are you?” Rey asked, a wrinkle in her brow.

“People usually call me Leasana.”

The name didn’t stir up any memories for Rey. “Leasana,” she tried out, rolling the word around to see if it felt familiar. It didn’t. “How did you guess my name?”

Leasana stared at her, not saying anything, for longer than Rey was comfortable with. She allowed it, though she itched to resort to more physical methods of gaining the knowledge she was looking for.

She trusted Kylo with her life, but there was something about this woman that struck Rey as crafty. Perhaps she had more inside of her head than Kylo was able to reach. He was often single minded and it wouldn’t surprise her if he missed something.

“Do you know who I am?” Rey finally asked, resting her hand on the hilt at her hip.

“It’s hard to forget a soul,” Leasana said finally, resting her forehead against the bars. In this light, Rey could see that her eyes were the lightest green she’d ever seen. Everything about the woman was lacking pigment to a startling degree.

“Did you know my family?” Rey didn’t know why she was taking this woman’s word, but there was something honest in her tone. It was loud to Rey, since she was often surrounded by people who said things they didn’t mean, or who manipulated her with words twisted around each other.

“No,” Leasana shook her head, soft wisps of white hair falling into her eyes. “A group of us found you after you’d been sold.”

Rey froze. “I was a slave?” she asked, her voice low.

“Not for long. We saw a young girl, a tiny thing, not worth much to the man who bought you. A few of us fought to get you away.”

Rey blinked rapidly and narrowed her eyes, forging a wall behind her eyes. “You took me to the rebels.” Her voice was a tiny whisper.

“Yes.” Leasana pushed an arm through the bars, reaching toward her. “Only for a few weeks. Maybe a month. Then our group was split up and you were taken away.”

Rey had been under Snoke’s  _ care _ since she was four years old. She was half-heartedly raised by human officers in green-grey uniforms, while Snoke instructed her to use the Force. Far from a normal childhood, Rey knew nothing else. She had no memories of her own to authenticate Leasana’s story.

She swallowed hard. “Why should I believe you? Are you trying to soften me up so I let you free?” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s not going to happen.”

Leasana didn’t seem as distressed about being in prison as she should have. “I see something inside of you,” she said, ignoring Rey’s words.

Rey brought her chin up in defiance.

“Something is changing deep within your soul, child,” Leasana said, leaving her arm dangling out of the cell. “There is light in you.”

It was so hard to keep pushing down her conflict. Rey shifted the weight on her feet. They were alone here. There was no way out of these secure rooms, no need for video or audio feeds, which was the only reason why Rey felt the ability to speak so freely here.

“I don’t know what to do,” Rey said finally. The words left her lips and she felt the tiniest bit of weight lift off of her shoulders.

Leasana tilted her head to the side, almost birdlike, though her expression was anything but sharp. It was warm and kind. Rey had spent little time with other women, as most officers and troopers were men. She didn’t know how women could have inherent softness like this rebel woman were expressing. “Choose wisely,” Leasana offered.

Rey found herself walking forward one, two steps. She flinched against the soft touch of Leasana’s hand pressing against the side of her face.

“Follow your heart. Even if you feel conflicted now, something will happen that will show you just what you need to make your choice.”

Tears clouded Rey’s eyes, blurring the woman’s face. She stepped back and shook her head, angrily wiping her eyes with the soft clothes wrapped around her hands. “I have no choice,” she said. She had spent her entire life on the dark, how was she supposed to live any other way? “It’s not that easy.”

Leasana clutched her hands together through the bars and gave Rey a small, encouraging look. “It can be,” the woman said, as if it were that simple.

She thought of Kylo as he killed his father, wishing for an easy answer to end his conflict. The death of Han Solo hadn’t healed him the way he wanted.

Maybe now that she was already broken, there was no way to fix her.

Rey scrubbed at her face again until her eyes burned with fire dredged up from far inside of her. She walked away from the prisoner and banged heavily on the door. The guard on the other side immediately opened it. He said nothing as she trailed a step behind, leaving the cells and stepping into the brighter lit halls.

Just as she got to the edge of the prisoner block, an invisible ripple slammed into her, causing her to nearly double over. Bare fingers caught the wall to steady herself. Neither of the guards knew whether to ask if she was all right, so they stayed quiet.

The force disappeared as suddenly as it came. She sucked in a breath, narrowing her eyes down the hall as if she could see through the ship. She straightened her back and moved forward with only one thing on her mind:

Kylo.


	10. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like my Kylo chapters a little lackluster in the emotional department so I tried to ramp it up in this one! I hope you like it!

CHAPTER TEN – KYLO

_ Four years ago _

Hux was always vying to be  _ more _ than just a military man. The Star Killer base was nearly complete and it would be the greatest military achievement since the Deathstar. Which probably impressed Supreme Leader Snoke marginally, but Kylo knew for certain that his Force-trained warriors were his greatest possessions.

Whenever they were both called in to speak with Snoke aboard the  _ Finalizer _ , it was Hux who continued to push himself taller, to show his work as if a machine could ever compare to the raw power of the Force.

As Hux was dismissed, Kylo turned his attention back to the twenty-foot tall projection.

“Supreme Leader, the girl, Rey,” he started.

Snoke sat back in his chair. “I see that you have finally met.” It was his skillful planning that kept Kylo and Rey from speaking a single work to each other until just a few days ago.

“Where did you find her? I’ve never felt such power in another person before,” Kylo confessed.

Snoke watched him with satisfaction. “A long time ago, in an unlikely place. Her power called to me.”

“It calls to me, too.” Kylo removed his helmet. “I wish to train her further.”

Snoke clenched a hand. “You have…compassion for the girl?”

“No.” Kylo swallowed hard. “I see strength in her that will be useful.”

“Useful.” Snoke mulled it over until Kylo felt the need to squirm under the massive projection. “You have yet to face your greatest weakness, young Ren. Your father still lives.”

Kylo’s gaze fell at the mention of Han Solo. “He means nothing to me. He was always more of a name than a father.”

“Hmm.” Snoke swiped through the air with a sharp-clawed hand. “I caution you to not allow Rey’s strength to overcome you. We both have sensed how powerful she can become. Do not allow her to become a weakness to you.”

Kylo raised his eyes then. “No.  _ Never _ .”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ The Present _

Rey left the throne room, instantly raising the tension with the absence. There was something less intimidating meeting via projection than aboard  _ Supremecy _ , but Kylo still had enough to be cautious about. Just because Snoke was a galaxy away did not mean that he couldn’t pry into his apprentices’ minds and pluck out information that both Kylo and Rey were keeping to themselves.

Snoke sat in silence, his enormous clawed hand opening and closing. Finally, he spoke. “Take that monstrosity off when you speak to me.”

Kylo swallowed hard and removed his helmet, keeping his eyes low.

“There is a map to Luke Skywalker. After all these years?”

“Supposedly,” Kylo said.

“If the Resistance has had this map, why haven’t they found him already?”

Kylo frowned slightly. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be replying or if the Supreme Leader was talking rhetorically.

“Skywalker  _ lives _ . The seed of the Jedi Order lives. And as long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy,” Snoke spoke with a harsh snarl in his raspy voice. He turned hard, cold eyes on Kylo. “We cannot give the galaxy  _ hope _ .”

“Supreme Leader, I—“ Kylo stepped forward but found himself shoved powerfully backward, pushed off of his feet. He landed on the floor.

“I thought you would be the one to snuff it out. Alas, you’re no Vader. You’re just a  _ child _ in a mask.”

Kylo clenched his jaw and got to his feet. “I will  _ destroy _ Luke Skywalker. There will be no more Jedi.”

Snoke stared at him without much conviction. “You have grown weak, Kylo Ren. Perhaps it is partly due to my decision to allow you to continue fraternizing with Rey, but there is unresolved conflict in you. That puts you in a dangerous position.”

Kylo said nothing but clenched his hand around the edge of the mask.

“If you can kill the last Jedi, perhaps that will turn you back to the side you chose to be on. If not…” He let out a humorless cackle. “We both know Rey will slay you if I order her to.”

Kylo stood in silence until Snoke swept a six foot tall hand, dismissing him. He walked stiffly from the room to the elevator. As the doors slid shut, leaving Kylo alone, he looked down at the mask in hand.

_ Your father’s heart. Just a child. No Vader _ .  _ Child. Weak. _

The words swirl around and around until they bubble to the surface like some sort of physical disease. With a hiss of a breath, Kylo swung the mask out against the side of the elevator. The helmet and the wall broke and shattered as he continued to pummel one into the other.

Heart hammering, he dropped the crumbled remains of his helmet on the floor and stepped out of the elevator, cape fluttering out behind him. He walked, silently and deadly, down the halls. Anyone who spotted him moved immediately out of the way.

He got to his quarters and the door slid open for him. He had his lightsaber out before the door closed. The tiny space seemed to sizzle with the heat from the plasma beam.

It was easy to destroy things when you had a weapon that cut through almost every known material in the universe.

Kylo held nothing back as he cut burning lines through the metal of the room. From his wardrobe to the bed, and he sliced and kicked the door in to where he had created a private shrine for Darth Vader.

The thing Kylo always tried to forget, even while training with his uncle, was that Darth Vader had been  _ redeemed _ . A man who caused so much death and destruction had found the light before he died, returning to the Force rather than disappearing into nothingness, into darkness.

Perhaps Kylo’s weakness was inherent, something coded into his DNA.

He didn’t  _ need _ to be Vader. Rey often told him he was better, that he could always be  _ more _ than his grandfather.

She was right.

Anything his lightsaber could reach was destroyed. Darth Vader’s mask even fell under the swing of his arm with no hesitation.

By the time his quarters were in smoldering ruins, Kylo’s heart hammered in his chest, his breathing labored, his hands shaking from the sheer amount of pent up rage and frustration flowing through his veins.

He stood in the midst of the ruin before collapsing his blade and walking out of the room. The last remaining functioning door of his quarters slid shut behind him. It closed off the destruction inside.

It wasn’t a far walk to Rey’s mostly unused quarters. He slipped inside with her familiar code at his fingertips. It was cool and dark and empty.

He stripped off his clothes but stopped halfway through to sit heavily on the end of the bed. Hunched forward, his elbows digging into his thighs, Kylo studied the smooth black floor as if it would have all the answers for him.

Snoke knew that his soul was skewed. That was the first that the Supreme Leader outright told him that Rey would be the last thing he saw if he ever did turn to the light.

Perhaps he was always supposed to the one to turn to the light. Snoke saw power in him, but got him too late. Kylo spent years fighting until the darkness sank deep within. But Rey? She was dark from the beginning. These were just the facts, and maybe they were created this way for a reason.

He and Rey often spoke of how they felt to be pieces, pawns, in a long game that Snoke was playing against the universe.

This may have been some kind of expected outcome that they were playing right into.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring, but it took a full five seconds for him to register the fact that the door slid open and Rey stepped inside and said his name.

“What happened?” she asked, her eyes wide. She moved to stand in front of him. He straightened up his back. “I just came from your room. I  _ felt _ your distress through the Force.”

He didn’t know what to say. Not now, not yet. Instead, he gripped her hips and pulled her close, tightening his arms around her and burying his face against her abdomen.

After a moment of hesitation, she slid her fingers through his hair and held him close, not saying a word.

He closed his eyes and listened to her heartbeat.

She kissed the top of his head, something soft and tender, something unlike her.

Was she truly as broken as he was?

They stayed like that for a long time.

“You were right, all along,” he said, his voice muffled.

Rey’s hand gripped his hair lightly and she pulled his head back, forcing him to look at her. There was something startlingly different about her face. To the untrained eye she may appear the same as always, but there was a lack of sharpness to her now; there were no knives behind her eyes.

“What was I right about?” she asked.

He shook his head a little. “I’m not Vader. I’m not Snoke. I’m not my uncle, or my mother, or my father. I’m not anything that any of them wanted me to be.”

She studied his face, though he couldn’t begin to figure out what she was thinking. That was rare; usually they were completely in touch with one another. “You’re Kylo Ren,” she said, as if it were  _ that _ easy.

Because it was.

He created himself. He would not be a Sith lord. He would not follow in Darth Vader’s footsteps. Vader wanted military prowess and control and destruction. Kylo’s search for power was ultimately different.

Kylo stood suddenly, keeping her close and towering over her. “We need to let the past die. To move forward.”

She rested her arms against his chest, her hands sweeping gently over his shoulders. “Yes,” she agreed. “We’ll create something new.”

_ We _ because the thought of taking Snoke’s place, of creating a New Order, would mean nothing to Kylo without her.


	11. Rey

Rey bit down her thumbnail to a stub by the time Kylo emerged from the washroom. She’d already stripped down to limited underthings and currently sat with her knees up and ankles crossed, drawing blood from ripped up cuticles.

_ Let the past die _ . She kept repeating it over and over the entire time she was alone.

Leasana’s knowledge of her past changed nothing. It wasn’t as if Rey came from the Resistance. Her parents had  _ sold her _ , so they were the type of scum she’d have no problem killing today. Rey was a dark Force user. That was what her entire life had been made up of.

What would she do without that?

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly. He looked  _ defeated _ , something she’d never seen before, not even in the forest after he killed his father.

“No,” he said with a slight shake of his head. He got onto the bed and they melded together. His shoulder digging into the mattress between her legs, his head resting on the curve of her hip and thigh, his arms languidly wrapped around the same leg.

Her fingers laced through his hair in the dark of the room.

“Have you been asked to kill me?” he asked after a while.

Rey pressed her right leg against his back and dug her toes under his side, digging them into the mattress. “Recently?”

“Explicitly.”

She let out a tiny sigh. “He told me that if you failed to kill anyone from your past I was to take your life.”

Kylo was quiet for a long time, though his fingers moved slightly across her skin so she knew he hadn’t fallen asleep. “Does a ship count?”

“What?”

He shifted more onto his back, looking up at her vague shadowy face. The back of his knuckles brushed against her neck. “I didn’t destroy the  _ Falcon _ . Is that why you were so shocked I didn’t blow it up?”

Rey bit down on the inside of her cheek. “I…yes. If Snoke finds out…He would kill us both.”

Kylo shook his head. “No. He would kill me.”

“Why do you always do this?”

“Do what?” He sat up, twisting around so his adjusted eyes could see her face. She could see him too, a complex turmoil mixing up inside his head. She couldn’t read him, which was something new. They’d always been open books to each other in a way they weren’t with any other person.

Or so she’d thought.

“You always wear yourself down as if you don’t deserve the power that you have. That you wouldn’t deserve to be the head of the Order,” she added, her voice a harsh whisper.

“We’ve talked about this.”

“ _ Yes _ , and I know that I’m Snoke’s so called favorite, but can someone like him even fathom such an emotion? He’s greedy. Either of us will do. We’re not special to him, not like family. We’re only his weapons. And your will is far stronger than mine.”

He let out a wry laugh that seemed to cut right into her soul. “My will?”

“You chose the dark side over the light. There is a strength in that that I cannot imagine.”

“Choosing the dark is easy. Staying here is a fight, every day.”

She frowned and stretched out a hand. She traced the lines of his face with the rough pads of her small fingers. “What do you need to resolve this?” she whispered. She selfishly wondered if his needs would match hers.

“I have to kill Skywalker.”

Rey’s jaw tensed but she nodded. She pushed herself up onto her knees and pulled his face to hers. His lips felt oddly foreign for just a moment before they felt familiar once again.

They settled back once again; Kylo’s head resting against her chest, his arms looped over her legs. Their heartbeats mingled through his back and her chest until they fell into a steady unison.

Rey’s hands moved through his hair until she felt him relax. Her own mind was too rattled for sleep, and she found herself braiding the top of his hair without realizing. She used to do this all the time, before they were turned into a two-person show to scare the Resistance into submission, back when they were just two people with raw talent and unsupervised hours of the day spent together.

Kylo eventually slumped down a bit against the mattress until she was pretty certain that he was asleep.

When Leasana spoke of choices, what exactly did she mean? It wasn’t like Rey could just drop everything and run away. She wouldn’t leave Kylo…would she? No, she didn’t want to do that because without him, what was the point? She built her entire life around the dark side of the Force and around Kylo, she wasn’t even sure that she  _ was _ a person without him.

But their hands were tied.

Snoke was too powerful to hide from, especially for his apprentices. His darkness was twisted around inside of them both, leaving behind residue that would never be scrubbed away. He would always be able to track them throughout the galaxies, no matter how far they ran.

And since when was running away such a prominent thought on Rey’s mind? She ground her teeth together. She  _ hated _ this. This uncertainty, these questions she had about things that had been so clear and focused for her entire life.

How could she let this happen?

She slid both of her hands down Kylo’s neck and crossed her wrists over his chest. Questions of  _ what if _ circled through her mind so quickly that they became a blur.

Rey didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until Kylo moved a hand to grip one of her arms and she startled awake. Wordlessly in the dark, they got under the covers and he curled himself around her smaller form, their hips level, his chest to her back, his breath in her hair.

She stared into the dark and laced her fingers with his, holding them tight to her chest. She didn’t know how much time passed before she spoke his name, her voice breaking the silence of the room.

He didn’t respond so much as make a tiny sound that was enough to tell her that he was practically asleep.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried very hard to swallow down the swell of emotions building within her chest. They weren’t  _ bad _ emotions, but she was no less terrified of their intensity.

The feelings paired with words that she knew of only in the context of weakness and of disdain because Snoke thought them so and taught his apprentices the same.

She swallowed the words down and forced herself into sleep just to get away. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to face those emotions and not turn.


	12. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: I officially do not understand how the Force works, so I hope this works for everyone reading lol 
> 
> Honestly I keep reading official Star Wars books and I've started binging Clone Wars and every time I find out something /new/ about how the Force works that leaves me like "????" so uhh....just go with it???
> 
> Also this is a 100% heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who is viewing this and leaving comments and kudos. It means a lot to me.

His dreams were dark and endless. He grappled for something solid until he saw a crossroads, an identical split, a mirror image. He stared until the two paths merged into one.

“Ben!”

The ground disappeared from beneath his feet and he fell, his heart in his throat until he startled awake with a gasp and widely blinking eyes.

His uncle, his Master, crouched beside him, a hollow, haunted look on his face. “Ben,” Luke repeated, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Come with me.”

Frowning and still trying to push away the feeling of freefalling through the sky, Ben got to his feet, tugging down his cotton tunic and ducking out of the cabin behind Luke. It wasn’t quite light. The rest of the Jedi temple was still and peaceful.

“Where are we going?” Ben asked, keeping up alongside Luke as they walked toward the edge of the camp.

Luke said nothing for a few more paces before he stopped on a smoothed sandstone patch, surrounded by sparse plants. He sat, crossing his legs and motioning for Ben to do the same.

“I fear that I’ve failed you,” Luke started.

Ben raised his eyebrows slightly, seeds of doubt and darkness already well hidden within him.

“I’ve sensed a darkness around you for some time. I figured it was just something everyone has to work through. Especially with our family history,” Luke added with a sad bit of humor. “I didn’t know it was so serious until now.”

“Why now?” Ben asked, cautious.

“I had a vision. I saw you doing…terrible things, Ben, terrible things. I knew as your Master, as your family, I have to help you.” Luke sighed and rested his hands on his knees. One was flesh, one was metal, the skeleton of a hand. “I just wish I had started sooner.”

Ben, sixteen and unbalanced but  _ fighting _ , didn’t know what to think.

“Let me help you,” Luke said, leaning forward. “I know you have the strength to resist the dark side within you.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“You want to. I can feel that too.” Luke glanced around and then squared his shoulders. “Tell me whatever you want me to know.” He held out his left hand. “Or show me. I’ll help you.”

Ben’s eyes moved from his uncle’s familiar face to the outstretched hand. He knew that this was a chance, that this was that diverging road and he had the power to choose which side to take. He  _ hated _ the violation of his thoughts by Snoke, but it was hard to fight. Ben had a lot of power, but he didn’t know exactly how to wield it yet. It was so much easier for someone to tell him what to do.

After a while, Ben lifted his own hand and set it over his uncle’s. Luke didn’t grab his mind and pry, but waited, open and patient until Ben let him  _ see _ .

The internal anger he kept tucked down from a childhood less than ideal. Most of his anger was directed at his father, Han Solo, who was away more than he was home. Flashes of his parents fighting. An intertwining evil like a shadow steadily creeping into his mind as the years passed until it all came down to  _ now _ .

Luke’s eyes were wet with unashamed tears. “Oh,” he said, as if he couldn’t quite realize how bad of a mental state Ben was in. “I can help you. Do you want me to help you, Ben?”

He felt as if he’d just scooped out his soul and hung it to dry. “Please.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kylo woke up in a flurry of limbs and a startled exclamation. Before it even registered where he was, he called his saber to his hand and it lit up the room.

Rey touched his bare back and he swung without thinking. A yelp left her mouth.

He blinked, once, twice, and saw the crackling blade millimeters from Rey’s nose, held steady by her pushing back with the Force. He hissed out a curse and extinguished his blade before collapsing on the edge of the mattress.

“Kylo?” Rey’s voice reached him through a great distance.

He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he felt as if he were seeing double every time he blinked. With his back hunched, he rubbed his eyelids with one hand and the other hung in a fist.

Rey scooted across the mattress and pressed her cool flesh against his back. “What did you see?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

His entire body stayed tense, even as he sat a bit straighter and she hooked her arms around his shoulders, resting her chin against the slope of his neck.

“Talk to me,” she urged after they’d sat in silence for a little bit longer.

“It was something…impossible,” he finally said, his hands gripping his knees. “A vision, but not of the future.”

“Are you sure?” Sometimes visions didn’t always come through clearly; they both knew this.

“Yes.”

He felt her own muscles tense and relax. They were both a mess, and neither of them were very good at sharing it. “Do you want—” she started but he interrupted.

“It was my uncle,” he said, which was startling. He never called him that; it was always Luke Skywalker, or simply Skywalker. The dream, the vision, was still fresh on his mind; that must have been it. “Luke…instead of trying to kill me, he took me in and wanted to help me overcome the dark.”

He relaxed a little as he spoke, leaning back against her, letting his head fall against her shoulder, clasping one of her forearms gently with one of his hands.

“Are you sure that it wasn’t a metaphor for something that’s going to happen?” she asked.

“Maybe? I was young in the vision. It was the same night I…” He turned his entire body then to face her. She fell back against her heels, her hands still pressed against his skin. “It was as if I was seeing something that could have come to pass but, because of multiple choices, it didn’t.”

“Choices,” Rey echoed. She started reaching for his face but suddenly he moved away, getting to his feet and turning on the light.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Where is what?” She stayed on the bed, curling her arms around her legs to make herself small.

“The port from the droid.”

“There.” She pointed at where her belt and its loop and pouch sat across the room.

Kylo pried open the pouch and pulled out the tiny blue file. It was odd how such a tiny thing could have such a big impact on an entire galaxy.

Before he could think or she could protest, he let it drop to the floor and called his lightsaber to his hand. It ignited and he dug the tip through the plastic, destroying it completely and leaving a divot on the floor.

Behind him he heard Rey gasp and scramble to her feet. She shoved him to the side and gapped down at the few melted bits remaining.

“What did you do?” she exclaimed.

The room fell silent without white noise as his blade disappeared once again. “It was a liability.”

“We’ve both seen it, Kylo.” She gripped his arm, digging her nails in. “If we’re found out...”

He turned, looking down at her with a sad but determined look on his face. He already had a plan forming. And sadly, she couldn’t be a part of it.

He searched her face and saw not fury and anger but fear and resignation.

His brows furrowed.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he lifted a hand toward her head. She was too startled to resist him. He made her forget the map, jumbling it in her memories so it wouldn’t be easy to find and made her sleep. He caught her before she fell, carrying her to the bed and setting her down.

He knew what he had to do.


	13. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit is getting real, my lovely readers! We're hurtling toward the super emotional climax, so stay tuned!

Rey woke with a throaty gasp. Her head and body ached as if she’d drank too much the night before. Squinting into the room that was slowly lightening to resemble the start of a new day, Rey felt out on the mattress beside her. It was cold. There wasn’t even a divot where there should have been one.

The events of the night came slamming back into her like a physical force. Putting a palm to her temple, she closed her eyes and tried to call the map to Luke Skywalker to mind. It was like trying to grasp mist. She caught a piece here or there, but in its entirety? Not a chance.

Growling, low and fierce, Rey got unsteadily to her feet and pulled on clothes. Pants, boots, tunic, tattered cloths crossed over her chest, belt, lightsaber. She didn’t brush through her hair, but pulled it back and let the loose, crazy clumps and curls surround her head.

Stomping into the hall, she shoved past a trio of white-clad storm troopers, one of which she pushed a little too hard. He fell to the ground but she didn’t stop to apologize. Her thin black shreds of a cloak fluttered behind her as she continued to walk.

She was in the middle of a hallway when she stopped short with a small exclamation. Supreme Leader Snoke’s twisted face, made up of a thousand blue lines of a hologram, took up the entire space of the hall.

“Sir,” she said immediately, bowing her head. She tucked all of her wayward thoughts away instantly.

“I have sensed a shift in Kylo Ren,” Snoke said, his voice loud coming from the bodiless face in the hallway. “Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength.”

Rey looked up at him through her dark eyelashes. “He knows what he must do,” she said, keeping her voice even.

“Where is he?”

Rey tried to keep her thoughts singular and calculated. “I’m on my way to him now.”

Snoke’s rage was hard to ignore, even when he was a galaxy away. “You are not with him? I gave you an order,  _ girl _ ,” he snarled. “Do not give me an excuse to have Kylo Ren end your life.”

She squared her shoulders. “There was a small delay, Supreme Leader. I will complete the task you gave me,” she insisted, giving him a deep bow.

He hesitated for a moment so she could see his full distaste before his face flickered away. Once he was gone, Rey was not filled with relief, but with more rage than before. She didn’t know where the rage was directed, but it was hot and heavy.

It showed on her face and her wild eyes as she walked through the Star Destroyer. Nearly to the hangers, Rey was stopped by the sudden appearance of General Hux, surrounded by a number of his high-ranking officers.

He glanced around and then settled his ratty gaze upon her. “Where is Kylo Ren? Don’t you come as a pair?” he mocked her.

It was the last thing he would ever say.

The Force chokehold was much more Kylo’s thing, but Rey was bubbling over with Kylo-like anger right now. Lifting a bare hand, she tightened her fingers and Hux grappled with the invisible force around his throat.

“I need a ship,” she said, teeth clenched. She eased her hold enough for him to nod. “One of Kylo’s.” Besides Carnage, Rey knew that Kylo’s ships were the only ones in the military force that had their tracking blocked. “His TIE silencer, fully fueled.”

Hux was going blue. She tightened her hold for one more second and then let him go. He slumped to the floor, wheezing. He had no strength left in him to yell and scream for her arrest for assaulting him.

Instead, she stepped closer, causing him to scoot back. “Will I get my ship, General?” she growled.

He nodded until his hair fell into his face. “Yes,” he croaked out.

She looked positively unhinged, towering over a man who she didn’t particularly like, her entire soul and mind in a complex fight for control of the dark and the light. Hux should have counted himself lucky that she spared his life.

“Good,” she said. “I need it immediately.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took longer than she’d like to get into the cockpit of the small fighter. She adjusted the things she needed to from Kylo’s design. It was a step up from the TIE fighters, which had no hyperdrives and would have caused her to waste more time setting up a hyperspace transport ring so she could follow Kylo across the galaxy.

The engines purred and the craft lifted off the hanger floor. Rey pushed the controls forward and she burst through the force fields on the bays and into open space. Just settling into the seat made her feel closer to Kylo, though his physical absence wasn’t helping her keep calm.

Snoke was playing both of them. They both  _ knew it _ , but could they really predict what his twisted mind cooked up for the two of them? They could very well be falling right into his perfectly laid out tricks.

It was more than frustrating to not even know that much.

Needing to be far away from the First Order, Rey set a hyperspace jump a few parsecs away just so that she could clear her mind.

Once she was in space with no ships nearby, especially ones from the Order, Rey settled back into the seat and closed her eyes, reaching out with the Force to find Kylo. It was only difficult because he was adamantly resisting and she wasn’t used to that. Finally though, she pushed through.

There was silence through the bond. They were both alone within their ships.

“What did you do?” Rey said, knowing he could hear her even if he didn’t acknowledge it by looking where she was sitting in the copilot’s seat next to him. He distanced himself enough that she couldn’t even see him within  _ her _ space, but she could see him perfectly in his own.

“What I had to do,” he said finally.

“That isn’t an answer.” She sighed heavily through her nose. “You left me behind.”

“I had to.”

“Snoke knows. If you were trying to protect me, you did all of this for  _ nothing _ .”

That sparked his eyes to flicker over to her own. She could see her surroundings, see that his ship was in hyperspace, stars nothing but flashing of lights through the front windows. “What do you mean, he knows? What does he know?”

“He knows you left without me. He knows that you’ve made a decision and your resolve has shifted to something he wants. He knows that I’ve become…compromised,” she said the last word carefully.

Rey and Kylo had been playing the will-they/won’t-they game for the past four years. Only instead of their relationship on the line, it was whether or not the other would kill them. Would Rey kill Kylo? Would Kylo kill Rey?

That had always been where their paths were leading them.

Kylo closed his eyes and muttered something untoward under his breath toward the Supreme Leader. Rey wondered just how Snoke could think Kylo made any sort of choice that would work on the dark lord’s favor, but then again, Kylo could be very convincing.

“I  _ need _ to be with you or he will kill us both, no matter if you kill Skywalker or not,” Rey said finally, pressing.

Kylo kept his eyes forward. “I…”

“Please, Kylo.” She moved as much as she could in her limited cockpit space and squeezed his forearm resting on the arm of the pilot’s seat. “I don’t know how to get where you are.”

“I did that to protect you.”

“And now it’s going to get us both killed,” she snapped. She wasn’t about to have a conversation about how wrong it was of him to do that to  _ her _ of all people. Not now, but later, if there was a later. She could hold off her emotions until their lives weren’t on the line. “Show me how to reach you and don’t go down to that planet until I’m there with you.”

He hesitated. His jaw clenched, his hands tightened into fists. The loose braids she’d plaited into his hair had slipped away overnight and his hair fell into his eyes. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he let out a small sigh and closed his eyes, opening up himself even more to her and letting her piece together the convoluted bout of hyperspace jumps she’d need to make to reach the final destination.

“Thank you,” Rey said finally, more like a thought than words spoken, as she retreated into the small fighter ship. With the path clear in mind, she programmed the first jump and a moment later, pushed the accelerator and burst into hyperspace.


	14. Kylo

As much as he wanted to attack without her, Rey’s words held truth in them. If she said that Snoke told her he would kill them both if she wasn’t with him as he carried out his final task as an apprentice, then Kylo believed her. The Supreme Leader wasn’t known for being merciful.

The fact of the matter was that Kylo wasn’t sure if he could follow through with what had to be done if Rey was there with him. Sure, he took down Chewbacca at the  _ Falcon _ , but Chewy hadn’t raised him, not the way Luke had.

As Kylo dropped out of hyperspace above the planet Ahch-To, he gripped the steering posts so strongly that they almost broke. Knowing that Rey wouldn’t arrive for some time because of her late start, Kylo put the ship on auto and left the cockpit. There was enough space for him to ignite his saber and swing it around, warming up his muscles and enticing himself into the task he would have to undertake.

Eventually, he ate a meal from the packs kept onboard. He didn’t reach out to Rey through the bond, though he felt as if he should, if not just to apologize before whatever happened down on that aquatic planet.

There were few landmasses down below, but Kylo had a good idea of where to find his uncle. It was almost funny to him that no one thought to look for him there already, but then he reminded himself of how little anyone else knew of the legends and history of the Jedi religion. Besides Luke, Kylo was the only other one who held such archaic knowledge. The others at the temple had long since given up their ties to the Jedi to become the Knights of Ren.

And as far as Kylo knew, they’d all perished undergoing their final tasks for Snoke.

Kylo stooped so low into boredom that he even took to menial physical workouts to keep himself from diving through the atmosphere and taking on his uncle.

Finally, as he sat crosslegged in the middle of what would descend into the ramp, Kylo sensed Rey’s arrival in space near him. He got to his feet and moved to the captain’s seat. He wasn’t even surprised to see that she had commandeered one of his ships. It was much more compact than his command shuttle, yet if they came across trouble, it would be perfect for some quick maneuvers.

He flipped a switch for close range communications on the switchboard. “Did you steal that?”

Her crackled voice returned a moment later. “I asked Hux. Not nicely.” There was a low level beep before she continued. “I’ll follow you down.”

The somber reality of why they were here hit Kylo hard. He set his jaw and turned off autopilot, readying the ship for atmospheric entry.

Ahch-To was almost entirely water, with sparse islands scattered across its surface. Kylo brought the ship down through the thin atmosphere and flew low over the water. There were few inhabitants of the islands, and the planet had stayed far away from any wars within the galaxies.

Rey kept her ship close, following him on instinct. It was as natural to them as breathing to follow the other through the Force. Perhaps it wasn’t the initial purpose of such power, but it served them both well in the past and hopefully in the future.

The island they were searching for was one of the larger ones, even though it was barely big enough to consider someone living there for years. Kylo found a space to set down his ship on the rocky landscape and Rey had to set her craft down farther up the cliffs.

It was cool and wet, the air heavy with salt and moisture as Kylo stepped out of the belly of his ship, hood pulled up over his hair. His hands were bare and he popped his knuckles as he waited for Rey on a slick slope of grass.

Her hair was hidden by her double hoods, though her outfit appeared to be less put together than usual. His eyes swept over her form as she stopped near him.

“You should stop protecting me,” she said as their boots started to sink into the damp soil. “Or you’re going to get us both killed.”

His eyes darkened and he turned to look up at the steps carved into the side of the rocky island, overgrown with grass and thin weeds. “I’ll keep that in mind if we make it out of this,” he said, his words caught by the breeze.

Rey stepped up to his elbow as he moved toward the steps. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“This is Anch-To, the birthplace of the Jedi religion,” he said, his voice low as if they’d be overheard. The only living things he could sense right now were a few birds and two slow, sluggish alien life forms. “If my uncle is here, he will be at his most powerful.”

She nodded once and followed him quietly until they reached the crest of the island. “I don’t sense anyone else here,” she said warily. Her eyes skittered around, anticipating an attack or ambush.

Kylo held no such anxieties within him. He felt strongly connected to this place, as if he could push a hand into the dirt underfoot and feel the entire planet as if it were a part of him. “You realize that Luke Skywalker is the last true Jedi? He could be shielding himself. This place has a lot of power.”

She pursed her lips and tucked her hands under her arms. “It’s a small island, he can’t be far,” she finally said, starting off in a random direction.

He let her go, not worried about her getting lost. There was very little island to explore, and he headed in another direction, higher until his breath came in gasps from the exertion. He made it to what appeared to have been ruins of the original colony of Jedi. Small, circular huts made of stone and mortar, some poorly patched up, others left to the elements. He spotted the odd, slow aliens he’d sensed before. They squawked in their native tongue but otherwise ignored him.

He reached out with the Force, searching for Luke, but he only found himself feeling as if he was hit in the gut by something big and heavy. He stumbled, nearly tipping over the edge of the cliff path, ending up on his knees against the well-worn stones of the walkway.

Whatever he felt was strong, and powerful, but it wasn’t Luke; it was Rey.


	15. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the super emotional stuff begins!
> 
> As if the entire fic hasn't been an emo roller coaster........

Rey left Kylo and walked  _ down _ . There was something about this island that she couldn’t quite place. She didn’t hate it, but she didn’t like it either. It was as if the island was alive and it wasn’t quite sure if it wanted her to be walking around on it. She felt a twisted sickness in her stomach, but she ignored it and walked onward.

She kicked at little round birds that yelled at her and flapped away awkwardly. She continued to feel the heavy weight of the damp air settle down, weighing on her shoulders.

She walked and walked without really paying attention to where she was going. It was by lucky chance that she didn’t twist an ankle when her foot slipped and she slid away from the stone path. She grappled for a hold to stop her from sliding down to the stone platform at the edge of the cliff by only found green stains on her palms but no real footing.

Slowing herself with the Force instead, she let her feet touch the stone lightly rather than slamming down and possibly injuring herself. She still fell on her knees and hands, cursing the overcast skies that looked like they were just waiting for the opportunity to drench her and the island. She didn’t like being wet, not like this. She liked her baths, but after spending almost her entire life aboard spaceships, she hated dealing with planetary weather.

Pushing herself to her feet, she tested her ankles. Nothing seemed to be hurt, so she shrugged her shoulders and glanced around. She was on some kind of circular platform with uneven but carefully laid out stones. Straight ahead was a break in the cliff, like a faux fjord, and right in the middle of it all was a hole, dark, seaweed-looking vines creeping out from all around.

Something about it pulled her forward. Kylo told her that this place was where the Jedi were born, where sentient beings learned to tap into the Force and  _ use _ it. This place was ancient.

And if the Jedi started here, did that mean the Sith started here as well?

She walked forward, expecting to hear the whooshing of waves against the rocks far below, but all sound suddenly stopped as soon as her eyes zeroed in on the wide hole.

_ This is stupid _ , she chided herself, feeling both fear and expectation from a hole in the ground.

And yet there she was, walking closer and, as if she’d closed her eyes and lost a few minutes of time to a blackout, she gagged on water and kicked and swam to the surface. She splashed and coughed; choking on the lungsful of briny water she’d inhaled. She slammed her arms against the rough stone near the edge of the pool and dragged herself out of the water.

She lay there on the cool, smooth stones until she caught her breath and her throat stopped burning. Rolling onto her side, she squinted into the cavern. It was dark, but somehow light filtered in, allowing her to see the space.

Her outer cloak was completely soaked, so she pulled it off and let the water drenched thing flop down against the rocks.

The silence from above followed her down here, and she had a quiet conversation with herself.

“What is this place?”

It felt ancient, and it was indeed  _ dark _ , but it didn’t feel like the dark side of the Force she was used to feeling. It didn’t feel like the bright, blinding light either.

With a frown creating a little wrinkle between her brows, Rey walked in the only direction left to walk. She walked and walked, and then she heard a single drip as she ducked through a short natural stone doorway.

She stepped into the empty chamber and suddenly it wasn’t so empty anymore.

Rey stood there, but she wasn’t alone. She could see a thousand copies of herself, but each one was slightly different. The farther away from her they got, the more they changed. Her hair, her clothes, the expression on her face.

Her frown smoothed out. She raised a hand, and all of the other hers did it as well.

She walked forward, her mind searching for answers.

“Why am I here?” she said. The words also left the mouths of all of the rest of the Reys.

She walked until she noticed the Reys in front of her took on a cracked quality and realized that she’d reached a wall of opaque stone. She looked over her shoulder and there were all of the Reys, laid out behind her. Their clothes went from her dark ensemble to grey, to blue, to green, to tan, brighter and brighter until she was dressed in nearly white.

Confused but calm, Rey turned back to the wall. There was nothing and no one here to tell her what to do. She took her time, trying to figure out exactly what she was being shown here. Lifting her hand slowly, she eventually let her fingertips rest against the cool, wet stone.

A gasp left her lips and her eyes fluttered as she was presented with a thousand paths, all of which led to one of the Reys lined up behind her:

A path where she grew up with the Resistance, with Leasana as her mother figure.

She sat on a throne in a dark room that looked like Snoke’s. Sometimes she was alone, other times she perched on the edge with Kylo at her side.

She never learned to use the Force.

She died young and for no grand reason.

She raised herself after her parents abandoned her and she was helplessly alone.

She’d never met Kylo Ren, but she knew someone who had his face that was laced with a wide smile and a brightness she didn’t recognize.

She was much older when she was taken in by Snoke.

Her parents were good people and they raised her.

She was found by a long-lost Jedi and raised as a powerful force of the light.

She and Kylo were on opposite sides of the war. Sometimes she had a red blade and he a blue, and sometimes she had a blue and he had a red one.

There were too many to compare, and yet she processed all of them as she stood there, her palm against the ancient stone, as her life was laid out bare at her feet. Her eyes filled with tears.

What had Leasana said?

“ _ I see something inside of you. Something is changing deep within your soul. There is light in you. Choose wisely. Follow your heart. Even if you feel conflicted now, something will happen that will show you just what you need to make your choice. _ ”

“Choices,” she breathed out, her voice throaty. Her hand came away from the wall and she swayed on place before collapsing, her mind succumbing to the darkness in the cave.

She didn’t know how much time had passed. It felt like days, but it couldn’t have been that long. She woke up to Kylo crouching over her, his bare hand against her skin, his voice saying her name, over and over.

Finally, she opened her eyes, meeting his. They were still in the cavern, though the opaque wall was nowhere to be found.

“What happened?” he asked, gently stroking his thumb across her cheekbone. She didn’t want him to stop, something deep within her craving such a gentle touch. “Are you all right?”

If she were, she would have let out a bitter laugh and pulled a spicy retort from the recesses of her mind, but instead she just looked at him with a naked vulnerability she’d never shown before. She gripped his hand with her own and he helped her to her feet. She swayed and he kept his hands on her shoulders so she wouldn’t fall again.

One of her hands rested against his chest.

“Kylo,” she whispered out his name as something inside of her crumbled. There was an ache inside of her so deeply that she wasn’t sure if it would ever disappear. And yet she knew that he knew exactly how she felt.

She’d never done much crying in her life, but she cried here in the dark, pushing herself up and holding him around the shoulders. His arms wrapped around her without question and he even lifted her off the ground, holding her tightly and saying nothing. He didn’t chide her, or caution her.

Maybe, this far from Snoke, surrounded by such a powerful place, they were safe. For now.


	16. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A teeny bit of snarky Kylo is just what this fic needed

They made their way back to one of the stone huts in a strained silence that wasn’t familiar to either of them.

“What was that?” Rey said finally once they were within the walls and he’d started a small fire. They could have made it back to the command shuttle, but it was starting to grow dark and with the slippery footing on the island, they were likely to injure themselves before they made it there.

“A cavern,” Kylo replied quickly.

She glared at him as she tugged off most of her clothes, sopping wet and cold. She shivered with her entire body and then tugged a folded blanket around her shoulders. She didn’t say anything but her face told him that she was waiting for an actual response.

“Jedi go through a certain trial in a sacred place when they’re graduating from Padawans to Knights,” he explained, as if reading from a textbook. “There’s usually a lot of self-reflection. That place where I found you…it felt very powerful. It was probably used for something like that.”

She frowned and sat down beside the fire, another shiver shuddering through her body. She looked into the flames and he could read her face clearly. Any trace of the earlier tears was gone, though the harsh blades behind her eyes hadn’t returned. She certainly looked like Rey, but as if there was something… _ missing _ .

“What did you see?” he prodded, sitting next to her. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him, hoping she would absorb some of his body heat.

She sucked in a short breath. “I don’t know if I can tell you. It was…” She shuddered again and closed her eyes. She leaned into him and neither of them said a thing until she stopped shaking. “Did you find Luke Skywalker?” she asked, as if suddenly remembering why they had come to this island.

Kylo clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Not yet.”

She started to move, to push him away and to get to her feet. “We shouldn’t be here, we should be searching for him.”

“Rey…” He said her name softly, reaching for her wrist to stop her. “Stop. It’s too dark to go searching for him, especially in foreign territory.”

She didn’t resist him, but she looked down at him with a curious look on her face. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

“No.” He shook his head once. “I’ll finish this tomorrow.”

Her features were softened in the flickering firelight—he didn’t want to tell himself that wasn’t the only reason why—and she slowly allowed herself to be pulled back down to sit next to him. “You never went through the Jedi trials, did you?” she asked as the fire got larger and warmer.

Kylo swallowed hard and shook his head. “I didn’t get the chance.” He had no reason to lie to her, not now. She knew most of his tale, the hard parts that haunted him still to this day.

“Are Sith trials even a thing? To become a dark lord?”

“Killing usually does it.”

She let out a heavy breath through her nose and rested her chin in her hand. “And what do we do now?”

He’d inspected the huts earlier. They looked as if someone kept them up for habitation. It wouldn’t be like staying on a ship meant for boarding, but it was better than being out in the elements. He could already hear rain falling from heavy clouds, darkening the sky as much as the setting of the twin suns.

“Sleep,” he suggested. There was a cot in the corner, much smaller than the beds they were accustomed to, but he didn’t want to leave her side. Not after she’d ended up in such a predicament earlier. She was slipping, fast and hard, and he needed to decide how he was going to stop her. If he was going to stop her.

She scoffed and stayed by the fire until her clothes dried. Kylo sprawled on his back on the cot, staring up at the dark roof that hadn’t yet started to leak.

He wondered if this would be what it would be like…if it was just the two of them, with no ties to the dark or the light. He allowed himself a sliver of pondering on the matter, before he remembered why he was here and where his plans inevitably led.

The fire, in the small pit in the middle of the floor, died down to coals and Rey made her way over to the cot to join him. He turned onto his side to give her space. She tossed the blanket over them as she got onto her side, tucking her arms against her chest and looking at him dead in the eye in the dimming light.

He rested his right arm over her and tucked his other arm under his head. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked finally.

She frowned. “No.” She closed her eyes, her face holding onto the tension from her own internal conflict.

He wondered if either of them would get much sleep, but it was better than sitting around waiting for the suns to rise. At least their bodies would relax, even if their minds didn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hours crept by. Kylo dozed, joints aching from not being able to move without potentially knocking Rey off the small cot.

Something stirred in the air around the hut, but not enough to rouse him. Not until, that is, the makeshift door to the building slammed open. Kylo startled awake and time slowed, each second feeling like an hour.

His worst nightmare had already come to pass, but here it was again: his uncle entering the hut, hate and pain on his face, hand moving for the lightsaber at his side.

Kylo called his own blade to his hand and crawled to his feet over Rey, who murmured something in her sleep and curled into a ball into the warmth of the space he left.

“Did you come back to say that you forgive me?” Years of fear and torment piled up behind Kylo’s words.

“No,” Luke said, eyes sweeping around the space.

Kylo hardened his gaze, grip tightening on his hilt. “Where have you been hiding?” he snarled.

Luke’s face took on a calmer expression, one Kylo was sure was a mask. “There is a tree on the island,” he said, easily giving up his location. He was so smug, so arrogant about the power he held.

The muscles in Kylo’s face twitched as he tried to remain calm, turning his anger and fear into a cold sort of fury. “You must have known this was coming.”

Luke looked sad, for a moment, and then it was gone. “I failed you, Ben. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are,” Kylo snarled. “The Jedi are nearly extinct. There will be no more tales of Jedi Knights coming to save anyone.”

“I won’t be the last Jedi,” Luke said. He retracted his lightsaber in what Kylo was sure was a trick.

It didn’t stop Kylo from sweeping his arm around to land a fatal blow. Centimeters away from his uncle’s form, his blade stopped, resisting nothing but air.

Luke looked equally surprised, his eyes darting behind Kylo, who turned to look.

Rey, awake and propped up on one elbow, had one hand stretched out, concentration on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, eyes filled to the brim.

What was she doing? What had she  _ done _ ?

He stared, disbelieving, until she gasped and her arm dropped. He whirled around to find his uncle gone. Kylo walked into the night. It was no longer raining, but the sliver of moons offered little light.

Luke couldn’t have gotten far.

Kylo saw a flutter and followed. His boots slipped over moss and grass and he chased until he found himself seeing nothing but shadows at the base of stone steps. A massive, squat tree loomed at the top of the steps. Narrowing his eyes, Kylo readjusted the weapon in his hands and walked cautiously up the steps.

“There’s no one here to stop me now,” Kylo called out as he moved toward a gaping hole at the edge of the trunk of the tree, large enough to walk through if he ducked. “Come and meet your fate!”

There was no light coming from inside, so he stepped in. He walked through the tight squeeze until he got to the middle of a tree. It had grown to create a small room, and he could feel the seed of Jedi power here. This was where it all began.

Except there was no one here. No sign of Luke Skywalker, no sign that anyone had been here for days.

There was what appeared to be some sort of shelf, and that was all. He walked toward it. Scratched along the surface were words:

_ NICE TRY, KID _

A frustrated growl left his lips, twisting into a full on yell. He lashed out with his lightsaber, leaving smoldering slashes in the flesh of the ancient tree. Outside, he didn’t see the burst of light as a small ship from another island exited the atmosphere into space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time he made it back to the huts at the top of the crest, his anger was merely a simmer, and it wasn’t directed at the person he thought it should be.

He stooped and entered the hut. Rey was no longer on the cot, but she had stoked the fire and sat there once again, wrapped in a blanket, tears painting her cheeks.

“What were you thinking?” he exclaimed, moving toward her. She stood and he grabbed her shoulders. “Why did you stop me?”

Her lips parted and another tear slid down her face. “You don’t understand,” she choked out.

He shoved her away as gently as he could manage in his current state. She clutched the blanket over her heart, her eyes wide and shocked. At his actions or his own, Kylo didn’t know.

His clenched his teeth and his fists. “He got away!” he finally exploded. “You let him get away!”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

He turned on her, chest visibly rising and falling. “Nothing you can say can undo this.”

“I know.” She squared her shoulders.

“You said yourself, if I failed, both of us were going to fall at the hand of Snoke,” he explained, as if this was brand new information to her.

She nodded. “I had to.”

He rubbed his face with his hands and then flung his arms out. “Why, Rey? Just tell me why, right now, and maybe I can fix this.”

“I…in that cave, where you found me…” She paused to rub at her face, trying to pull herself together. “I saw the light within me. And I saw…I saw the light within you, too.”

The air stilled around them.

“What?”

She cleared her throat and took a sure step toward him. “I saw many things down there. I saw how things could have been. I saw how things could be.” Rey stepped forward again, this time with her hand outstretched toward him. “I don’t know how to explain it but maybe I can show you.”

He knew this trick; he knew how it went. But this was Rey, after all, and as upset as he was, he still trusted her. Kylo slowly lifted his own bare hand and when their skin touched, they both inhaled at the same time, flashes of the truth flooding both of their minds.

Before Kylo wanted it to stop—as overwhelming and unsettling as it was—something beeped, disrupting their concentration. The beep came from Kylo’s cloak, alerting him to an incoming transmission to his ship. Just because it couldn’t be tracked by location, he could still be contacted.

He stepped away from Rey, his mind abuzz, and reached for the portable holocomm. He held it in his palm and pushed the button on the side. A foot tall image of the Supreme Leader flickered to life on his palm.

Snoke did not look pleased. “Is Rey with you?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“Bring her to me. In shackles.”

The transmission ended.

Short, brief, and to the point.

Kylo twisted his torso and met Rey’s eyes. She didn’t look afraid.


	17. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O Shit is getting real!
> 
> A lot of TLJ moments in this one.

There was nothing she could do to explain this except to wait and see if what she had seen would come to pass. Kylo’s face was a boiling storm, a dark cloud of emotions that he didn’t know how to deal with.

“Kylo,” she said softly, reaching out a hand and gently turning him fully toward her.

“What will I do if he kills you?”

Rey tilted her head to the side. “You saw what I saw.”

The anger behind his eyes extinguished. “Rey…”

“I don’t know why this is happening now, but something is different. I believe what I saw in that cave. There is light within you, no matter how much you try to stomp it out. I have light in me too.” That was the oddest part. Just days ago she was told by Snoke that she was as close to a Master as she could be before officially becoming one.

Now look at her. It was almost as if the universe was personally invested in her life.

“I saw you by my side,” Kylo said.

“And I saw you by mine.” She gripped both of his wrists and pushed herself up on her toes, the blanket falling to the ground. “If you don’t know what to do, I can help you.”

She couldn’t read his every thought, but there was definitely some sort of certainty behind his eyes. Snoke was right about that, but exactly where Kylo’s decision landed for any of them was something only he knew.

“Okay? I trust you,” she added, though her words were nearly smothered by his lips on hers. He hands gathered at her hips and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her back arching so much it hurt.

Once she couldn’t breathe and settled down to the flats of her feet, she looked him in the eye and nodded. “We should get going,” she finally prodded, breaking the spell within the tiny hut.

“So eager to go to the execution?” he asked wryly. It was still bothering him, how accepting she was with being found out, but that was just something he would have to get over on his own. Maybe if he saw the way things would play out once they got to Snoke, he would understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rey dressed, they doused the fire and left, using their sabers as lights so they didn’t break anything sliding down a cliff. Once they stood at Kylo’s TIE silencer, he hesitated.

Rey pushed her double hoods down. “I’m not going to run. I’ll fly back in this so you don’t have to come back for it later.”

It was almost funny how she knew that’s where his mind went, if only just for a split second. He took great pride in his ships, and some part of her knew that he didn’t want to drag the Order to this peaceful place to retrieve it later.

He nodded and moved on down the cliff.

Rey’s cloak was still very damp, even though she’d rung it out and had it sitting by the fire for a few hours as they slept. The suns were barely bringing a tiny bit of lightness to the sky as she hopped into the ship, grimacing at the wet cloth around her. She shrugged it off and shoved it by her feet before starting up the engines. She didn’t leave the ground until Kylo’s ship lifted into the sky. They traveled a little ways away from the island and then turned their noses toward the cosmos.

Hyperspace was such an odd place because it was and wasn’t at the same time. It gave Rey just a small window of time to compose herself and to prepare for whatever was coming. Snoke’s wrath was not something she was accustomed to getting; Kylo was more often the one broken down by the darkside Master.

That must have been part of his plan all along, too. Rey and Kylo were both important to him. They were both broken parts, but for different reasons. Kylo stood standing, his heart still dark. Rey was pushed just a little too hard and now she was like a globe with cracks spiderwebbing across the surface: at a glance, she was still in one piece, but one wrong breath and she would shatter.

The  _ Supremecy _ was just as enormous as always, but especially when she was in such a tiny ship. She came out of hyperspace just a few seconds after Kylo. He kept his shuttle close by and they flew toward the southern landing bays. 

There was a full squadron of troopers waiting for them. Kylo stepped out of his shuttle first and walked toward the TIE silencer. Rey took one breath to strengthen herself before she climbed out of the pilot’s seat and onto the floor.

One of the troopers came forward and clipped cuffs around her hands. She rolled her eyes as Kylo took her blade from her hip.

“Let’s go,” Kylo said, standing taller than all of the troopers. He put a hand on Rey’s back and guided her forward.

The squad broke into four lines. One leading them, two groups of four on either side, and the rest following.

Rey was impressed with the amount of weapons—guns, axes and batons—surrounding her. At least Snoke still knew that she was a threat.

They got to the tram that would lead to the middle of the ship. Rey swayed purposefully as it took off from the platform to bring them to the central elevators leading up to the throne room. Kylo had blocked his mind off from her, protecting himself behind a wall. It was smart, considering how easily Snoke could slither into their thoughts. She did the same, though she missed the closeness that the ever-present current between the two of them gave off.

She was content to just rest her shoulder against his side and to say nothing as the tram slowed. The troopers stepped off and so did the two of them. The small elevator was a little ways in, through a few turns in the halls.

“Well, boys, it’s been fun, but I don’t think we’ll all fit,” Rey said as they got to the elevator. One of the troopers hit the button to open the doors.

She flashed them a smile as Kylo took her upper arm and walked her inside. She gave the group of them a small wave with her shackled hands before the doors shut.

“Did you have to do that?” Kylo asked with a sigh.

“I have to keep up appearances,” Rey replied. Her stomach dropped to the floor as the elevator took off. “So this is it.”

Kylo didn’t say anything behind her.

She turned and looked up at him. “Remember what I said.”

They had to be careful. If their walls fell and Snoke found out the true intentions of his two apprentices, then it would all be for nothing. Four years of work to fail just because Rey wanted to make sure he would follow through with what  _ he _ planned.

Kylo was unpredictable; a quality that Rey thoroughly enjoyed but at moments like now, it was imperative that everything went to plan.

She studied his face because  _ what if _ …what if this was really the last time they’d be alone? What if this was all going to end in her death? Maybe that cavern in the birthplace of the Jedi was tricking her, mixing up her actual life with those of the various other Reys that could have once existed if things had been different?

Maybe this would be her only chance to finally say it.

She opened her mouth and sucked in a breath, but the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened behind her.

Any softness in either of them disappeared as their shields went up, immediate protection from Snoke’s sneaky, intrusive mind.

The Supreme Leader was waiting for them up on his throne in his room of red, surrounded by his grand warriors. Rey squared her shoulders and stepped forward. Kylo’s hand was feather light against her upper back.

This was it.


	18. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 95% of this is based off of the throne room scene, and I used a lot of the same dialogue because I felt it was strong and useful. Obviously those words aren’t mine, but the rest are!

His resolve was true. Or so he kept telling himself. The past few days hadn’t been easy—not that the past twenty-nine years of his life had been any easier—because not only was he dealing with his own struggles, but Rey’s now too. Even if she didn’t directly put her conflict on him, he was a part of it…she was a part of him, so it was his burden too.

The walk to the circular platform felt longer than ever.

“You’ve done well, my young and faithful apprentice,” Snoke said, speaking to Kylo, though there was a hint of thinly laid disappointment amongst his words. “My faith in  _ you _ is restored.”

Kylo continued to walk as far as he ever did before bending on one knee. Rey, who always stopped at his side, continued walking forward and didn’t bow. 

Snoke looked amused at her rebellion. Kylo knew that amusement wouldn’t last. It would twist into something violent and dangerous.

“You wanted to see me, Supreme Leader,” Rey said, bowing her head an inch. He was still her Master, after all.

Snoke downright ignored Kylo now, focusing all of his attention on Rey. “You, however…” There was a clank as the cuffs dropped from her wrists. Snoke had nothing to fear here, surrounded by his loyal subjects. He expected Kylo to protect him if Rey went rogue.

Well, more than she already was. 

“How disappointing,” Snoke continued as Rey shook out her hands. Kylo couldn’t see her face, couldn’t feel her through their Force bond but he could imagine her look of hard defiance. “So much strength within you, Rey. You’ve always been incredibly powerful, my fiercest warrior.”

Kylo’s eyes focused on Rey’s feet. He didn’t often look at the Supreme Leader in the eye, especially not now, not when he, for once, wasn’t the one being punished. He didn’t flinch as Rey’s lightsaber hilt was torn from his grasp and flew into Snoke’s hand. It was double the length of a typical hilt and looked almost normal in the Supreme Leader’s oversized grasp.

“I had always hoped I would gain two worthy apprentices with both you,” he waved Rey’s lightsaber around, “however…I should have known better than to trust such a dark and powerful force to a woman.”

Kylo squinted, watching Rey’s hands turn to fists. She took a step forward. “Is that what your argument is going to be? I defied you…because I’m a woman?” She scoffed, though it was turned into a slight gasp as she was tugged forward, her body restricted, pulled by the Force. “If you underestimate me because I’m a woman, it will be your downfall.”

Snoke tugged her forward to his feet, putting aside her hilt and lifting an large hand to her face. Kylo clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to move, to speak. It wasn’t his place. His place was to melt away into the background so he could strike, however difficult it was to see Rey facing even a portion of the ruthless torments he was so accustomed to.

“I’ve seen your future, Supreme Leader,” Rey said, struggling against his hold. “I’m afraid you won’t like it.”

“Oh?” Snoke’s voice took on a soft edge. Kylo knew what came next. “You think I don’t know what’s going on inside the minds of my apprentices? Do you think I’m not aware that you are Kylo Ren’s weakness and he is yours?”

Kylo needed to bide his time, but he saw Snoke’s fingernails dig into the flesh on Rey’s face and he almost lurched forward.

“You have defied me, pulling toward the light,” Snoke continued, his voice hardening. “I will not have weakness and betrayal within my ranks!”

Kylo’s hand slowly moved to his lightsaber at his hip as tension filled the room.

Snoke leaned closer to Rey’s face. “I will kill you with the cruelest stroke,” he said, his eyes flickering to meet Kylo’s for the briefest moment.

“No,” Rey growled, just before he tossed her backward, until she hung feet in the air. Kylo’s eyes followed her, and his ears rang as her voice turned into a scream as Snoke sent sparkling lightning charging through her body.

Kylo’s eyes clouded with rage, and it took everything in his power to stay still, though his body shook with the effort.

Snoke’s was so focused on Rey that Kylo’s mind, a whirling swirling mixture of conflict, was barely a blip on his radar. He could use that to his advantage, to blend into the background.

And just as suddenly as the screaming started, it stopped. Rey’s chest heaved as she was brought before Kylo on her knees.

_ The cruelest stroke _ .

Their entire lives had been leading up to this moment. Who would be forced to kill who? They always thought it would be Rey striking down Kylo.

Kylo ignored Snoke and stared at her. Her face was wet with sweat and tears. Their shields were still up against Snoke, but their eyes could say a lot of things without needing the Force to bridge the gaps.

And Kylo knew then how he would succeed.

“My young apprentice, son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader, I sense your resolve. I know you will strike down your weakness to complete your training and fulfill your destiny,” Snoke said, boosting up Kylo in a way he’d never done before. Rey was always the one being praised, the perfect subordinate.

Rey looked at Kylo, her body held stiff. She nodded once, as if to say,  _ It’s okay, I trust you _ , like she’d said before, back on Ahch-To.

Her life was literally in his hands.

“I know what I have to do,” Kylo said, his eyes still on her as he stood. There was no question. He did find resolve within the conflict within him. It just wasn’t what Snoke wanted.

“Kylo,” Rey whispered. There was a tiny flicker of fear, just a flash, through Rey’s eyes as Kylo slowly twisted his left hand at his side. Once upon a time, Kylo may have judged her for it, but not now.

Snoke looked on as if he were watching a sporting match, leaned forward, nearly gleeful with the death about to be laid out at his feet.

“You think you can  _ turn him _ ?” Snoke sneered. “Pathetic child. I see into his mind, I see his every intent.”

Something else flickered across Rey’s face, drawing back the memory of years ago, after she’d slashed open his face and visited him in the infirmary room. They decided then, silently, that they would take down Snoke and seize the empire for themselves.

Snoke was too caught up in his own gloating to notice that the steely resolve within Kylo was not about killing Rey. “Yes, I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true, and now,  _ foolish girl _ , he ignites it and kills his true enemy.”

Kylo looked so deeply into Rey’s eyes he thought he would drown, but he found the strength and calm within them to do what he needed to do.


	19. Rey

As soon as the words left the Supreme Leader’s mouth, Kylo did just that.

A twitch of the wrist, she heard the distinct sound of a lightsaber coming to life. Only it wasn’t the one in Kylo’s hand, held out before him in her direction.

The breath caught in her lungs let out in a whoosh as the hold on her body was released. Rey fell heavily to the floor. Tears leaked from her eyes. She moved quickly, twisting around to set her sights on the throne.

There, her lightsaber had struck true, slicing straight through Snoke, who sat there, gasping in surprise.

Her gaze hardened on him. He had none of her pity.

Kylo had done what she prayed he would. Relief washed over her like a wave, but she knew this was far from over. The guards didn’t quite know what to do, and the world moved in slow motion.

Her lightsaber was brought forward, cutting Snoke clean in half, and flew toward the two apprentices. Rey lifted a hand and it fell into her palm where it belonged all along. Her muscles aching from Snoke’s hold and the lightning, Rey got to her feet.

Kylo said nothing, but what could really be said in a moment like this? The Supreme Leader, body cleaved in two, Rey alive, Praetorian guards ready to strike...

The future vision she’d shared with Kylo on that island quickly came to pass. Without a word, they spun as the world came crashing down around their shoulders once again.

The ship thundered around them. The Rebels must be attacking, but Rey had little time to worry about that. With the black tendrils of Snoke’s evil clear from her mind, and her own heart in mild turmoil, she wasn’t at her fighting best. She would need to put all of her focus on getting out of here alive.

She backed up to Kylo and surveyed the guards coming at them with whips and staffs. She could face this; she was still  _ Rey _ , one of the best fighters in the entire First Order. Just because her heart felt lighter didn’t mean she lost that part of her.

It had been a while since she and Kylo fought together, but with Snoke gone, their walls came down and their Force bond flowed between them like a river. There were eight guards, four on either side of Snoke’s throne who came at them.

They were skilled, Rey would give them that, but they were no Force users.

The first one attacked her but she blocked his vibro-arbir blade with her saber before fending off another’s longer staff. The air was filled with the electric sounds of the lightsabers and the electric-edged blades and whips of the guards, and the far off sounds of explosions from a battle they couldn’t see.

She couldn’t see Kylo, but she could sense every move he made, every move he intended to make, just like she could anticipate the moves of the guards milliseconds before they happened. She ducked and slashed and stabbed one of them clean through the abdomen when Kylo’s right side was left vulnerable for a mere moment.

Three of the guards came at her at once, and, without the need for a word, Rey backed up to Kylo and they moved like a dance. She reached back for his hip and used his back as leverage so she could kick back two of the guards as Kylo simultaneously pushed the third back from her with the Force.

The close quarters wasn’t giving either of them a lot of space to fight, which was probably the point. However, as Kylo grabbed one of the guards around the neck and shoved his lightsaber through his chest, they swapped sides of the room. Rey ducked and caught the dull end of a staff in her free hand. She pushed a guard back as they moved toward the edge of the platform.

Another guard lashed out with a whip and caught her arm. Rey hissed, spun her saber in hand charged. She yelled, spun and kicked, whirling around and killing the guard with the staff with a stab through the heart. She wrenched her lightsaber up and severed the guard’s head, tossing it and his helmet up. It hit the red edge of the room and started to burn.

Behind her, Kylo sliced through his fair share of the guards, cutting down their weapons and finally the men who wielded them.

Rey’s last guard caught his whip around her blade and pulled her forward. With a snarl, Rey ignited the other half of her saber and broke the hilts apart, slicing the guard through the middle before he could even react.

Spinning around, she saw Kylo, saber-less, a guard with a staff to his throat. “Kylo!” she yelled, tossing him one half of her own lightsaber. He caught it and turned it on, blasting through the faceguard. Ducking out from under the staff, he strode toward her.

The room around them was on fire, the ship kept rumbling with explosions from a fleet they could now see outside. But none of that was important to either of them.

They had eyes only for each other, meeting in front of the blood stained throne. Kylo grabbed her around the middle with one arm, pulling her close for a heated kiss. Rey’s hands dug into his thick shirt as she arched her back and pressed her entire body against his.

There was a feverish relief at the death of Snoke. The guards that were loyal to him lay dead all around them.

Kylo’s hand cupped the back of her head and tangled in her hair. Rey tugged the ends of his hair with her own hands and moaned into his mouth, the little bits of broken pieces within her soul stitching themselves back together.

A particularly large blast near to where they were on the ship forced them apart. Rey, dazed and her heart beating so fast her head swam, called her lightsaber pieces back to her and twisted them back together. She glanced outside at the stars, at the ships, and the fires erupting all along the Mega-Dreadnaught.

And then her eyes settled on Kylo, who stepped a pace back, his eyes on the slumped bottom half of Snoke on the throne, the raised platform on which the chair sat covered in a sea of blood.

Rey’s breathing was short and shallow. “Kylo?” she said into the sparking, white noise of the room. She could sense a calm in his mind that she’d rarely felt before. She just hoped that he now understood why she did what she did. She’d known for a while a piece of the puzzle he hadn’t been aware of:

Snoke was Kylo’s test; not Skywalker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fight is similar but not exactly like the movie, since obviously my Rey is a much better fighter than movie!Rey because she’s been trained in combat her entire life, but I kept in a few details I liked from the movie.


	20. Kylo

He felt as if he were suddenly spread out all over the place. So much changed in an instant and now the paths before him were open. He had choices for the first time in ages and he was overcome with the fact.

He wanted Rey, like always, and by the desperate way she kissed him, her lightened heart hadn’t changed the way she felt about him either.

There was the lack, the absence, of a foreign dark in his mind. It was a relief he didn’t know he so desperately needed because it had always been there. Snoke, curling into his mind like black smoke to kill his spirit and turn him into the fearsome killer he was. He never knew what was him and what was Snoke, and he finally had his answer.

As he stood there, the  _ Supremacy _ caught in battle with the Rebels that felt like it was taking place very, very far away, Kylo saw nothing but the pieces of the being who had tormented him since he was a child, stroking his anger and fear. Snoke had been a powerful source, someone to be feared and respected, and yet he had died just as easily as anything else made of flesh and bone.

“Kylo?” Rey’s voice came to him from a few feet away.

He waited, as if he was expecting Snoke to gather himself together and come back with a vengeance to kill them both. But nothing happened.

“You’ve done it,” she continued, her voice soft, coaxing him back to the present. “He’s gone.”

Kylo blinked, once, twice and then turned to her, as if seeing her in a new light. And maybe he was. She was certainly not the same Rey he knew just a week before, but she was still… _ Rey _ . She may even have been more like herself now that she was allowing herself to feel a full spectrum of emotions. Fear and anger and hatred were what fueled the dark; those were the emotions they had grown up on.

But now? Anything was possible.

“We need to let old things die,” he said. “Snoke. The Sith. The Jedi. The Rebels. All of it. Let it all die. Move forward. I know I can create something better.”

Alone in his own mind, Kylo felt all of his problems falling away and a clear vision taking their place: Snoke usurped, the throne was Kylo’s. He could create something new, something better. His  _ own _ darkness, for once, settled into his mind, unstoked by Snoke’s touch.

“Kylo,” Rey said again, her voice small. She took a step back when he took one forward.

“This is what we always talked about,” he insisted, stepping forward again. “We can create a New Order, something better than Vader’s Empire, or Snoke’s.”

Rey shook her head, but she stopped moving back. “Kylo it won’t…it won’t be what you truly want.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

He stepped close so they were near enough to touch. “The visions? Visions are one thing, Rey, but this…this is the reality around you. I can create the world we were meant to rule.”

Rey shook her head, eyes glossing over. “It was always meant to be this way,” she said softly. “Who was I, really, within Snoke’s Order? I was never known by name, I worked in your shadow. If we were to rule? I’d still take that place. And I don’t want it.”

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Kylo clenched his jaw. “No, we  _ planned _ this. You and I.”

“And I’m doing what you told me. I’m letting my past die. I want more out of life than endless killing and war.”

“I’m not enough?”

She sucked in a shaky breath and blinked, fresh tears falling. “No, you are. I…I love you.”

The words made him still. Those weren’t words they ever said because love was weakness, something Snoke drilled into them from day one. But Rey’s face, open and vulnerable and honest, told him it was true.

And what could he do with that information? He didn’t  _ know _ . He wasn’t used to being loved, not anymore.

Her name left his lips softly.

“I love you,” she repeated, her voice stronger. “But I can’t stay here.”

“Don’t leave,” he said. He didn’t know what to do with his fear and anger when it wasn’t tethered to Snoke, so he crushed it and looked at her instead with a sad honesty that told her he didn’t want all of this if she weren’t here with him. “Please, Rey.”

His hand outstretched just enough to call her attention to it. She stepped forward, sliding her small, bare palm against his gloved one. “You could come with  _ me _ ,” she proposed. “We could find someplace far away. No one will know us, no one will look for us. Let Hux have his army. Let it fall apart at his feet. We could finally live.”

They were at an impasse now. He wanted things she didn’t. She wanted things he wanted but wouldn’t allow himself to have.

“Rey…” He lifted his other hand to her face. Maybe it was a good thing that he couldn’t feel her skin against his. He may have given up the entire galaxy for her if he did. But not right now…not after the years of torment and agony. He couldn’t just walk away; he deserved a little vengeance.

And she knew. The look in her eyes told him that. She could so easily remove herself from this life of darkness and death, but Kylo wanted more. He wanted power, and now he finally had it.

“I’ll wait for you,” she said, her voice overtaken by an explosion nearby. Guards would be coming up here soon. She’d have to leave now if she wanted to get away within the havoc of the battle.

With no more time to spare, Rey stepped reluctantly away, her hand slipping out of his. She spun around finally and darted off to a side corridor where Snoke’s special escape pod sat.

Kylo watched her go, standing alone in the burning, broken room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read some meta stuff about Kylo being the only one who could make himself turn to the light and I really liked that and it fits with the theme of my fic so I’m taking it on full heartedly that Rey can’t change him and she isn’t there to just be the reason why he turns to the light.


	21. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we finally have a chapter that's more than a mere snippet like the past few have been! Hope you all enjoy it as the fic dwindles down to an end!

Snoke’s escape pod was more of a full-blown ship than just a pod. She could travel at light speed and it had shields and weapons. She skirted through the battle, avoiding X-Wing fighters and watching as heavy Resistance bomber ships dumped explosives on the enormous Star Dreadnaught.

Rey wasn’t worried about Kylo living through such an attack, but her heart still ached with her choice to leave him. But if what she’d seen in that cave was true, he would find his way to her eventually.

She pushed all of that aside and focused on getting away from the battle. She saw a group of small escape pods heading away from a main Rebel ship, and flew in that direction. Snoke’s ship was not rectangular enough to blend in, but she got far from the blasters of the fighters.

As she snuck away from the main battle, she felt someone connect with her through the Force. It wasn’t Kylo, but she couldn’t tell exactly who it was. The person was definitely not the dark entity she was used to dealing with, so her only other guess was Luke Skywalker. He must be among the ships here.

Frowning slightly, she left behind the crippled remains of the  _ Supremacy _ , clearly damaged enough to barely limp away. Guided along with the other escape pods and the larger battleship, Rey soon hovered above a small, harsh looking planet as the Rebellion sent their people down to the surface.

It took hours but soon space was clearing and calming, and the  _ Supremacy _ had drifted away from the planet. Rey, with no other options left, took Snoke’s ship down to the surface. She set down close to the escape pods, and waited as a handful of people came out to  _ welcome _ her.

The Rebel base was large and carved in a cliff side. It was impressive and if they had enough supplies, would be a good place for a siege.

Rey, in her thin cloak, arm bleeding and muscles sore, stepped out onto the exit ramp of her ship. She was a single woman, and she hoped that the Rebels wouldn’t shoot first.

She spotted the person in the lead of the little party and sucked in a breath. It was none other than Luke Skywalker, looking older and more haggard than he had on Ahch-To. Behind him were four Rebels with blasters trained on her.

Rey resisted her usual slitted eyes and smirk as she set her sights on them. She wasn’t the enemy now. She was going to do everything she could to become a neutral entity.

“Luke Skywalker,” she called out once he was close enough. Her lightsaber hung freely at her hip but she kept her hands away from it. She knew that he had once tried to kill his own nephew for fear of his pull to the dark. She should be furious, wanting to strike down the last Jedi herself for such an action, but had she not also raised her blade often to Kylo amid her fits of mindless rage and killing? She had no right to hold such a grudge against a man she did not know.

The older man surveyed her. “You were with my nephew,” he said, confusion laced within his words. “You stopped him from striking me down.”

“I did,” Rey said, her eyes darting to the Rebels, who looked jittery.

“Thank you for that, though it was just an astral projection. I was in no real danger,” Luke continued. He stepped forward until he was two feet in front of her. “But you didn’t know that.”

She frowned a little. “No, I didn’t.”

They looked at each other for a little while, two Force users in a galaxy that was lacking in them.

“Snoke is dead,” Rey said finally. The Rebels behind Skywalker murmured in surprise. “And you don’t have to fear an attack from the Order. Not here on this planet anyway.”

“And why do you say that?” Luke asked.

Rey crossed her arms. “Kylo Ren has taken control of the First Order. He won’t attack as long as I am here.”

“He won’t.” It was a question, but the Jedi phrased it like a statement.

She shook her head. “He won’t. You can be at ease. I only wish to stay by my ship until the Dreadnaught leaves this system.”

Luke watched her curiously before he nodded. He didn’t need to say the words to tell her that he sensed she was no longer fully aligned with the dark. She was muddling around somewhere in the middle, but since she helped spare his life, it was difficult for him to send her away.

A few days passed. Rey spent most of her time sleeping and sitting crosslegged at the base of her ship ramp, meditating and trying to reach out with the Force. She wasn’t just searching for Kylo, but she was searching for anything to guide her, to let her know where her place was.

It took three days for Luke Skywalker to return. He came alone and merely sat opposite her on the salty ground of the planet.

“You’re very curious, young one,” he said.

Rey cracked open an eye. He sat with his lightsaber in a gloved hand. “Am I?”

“I can feel your inner conflict. You’re not standing with the dark any longer, but you’re not aligned with the light,” Luke continued.

“Does there have to be two such extreme sides?” Rey asked.

Luke looked surprised. He didn’t say anything for a long time. “There have been people who use the Force for a long time. The Jedi, the Sith…it is not as black and white as we’re led to believe. I think that there were far more Jedi who fell on a sliding scale thousands of years ago. The last Jedi Council, the one that my father demolished, was so intent on the side of light that they never took into account that people are emotional, fluid beings. It is nearly impossible for us to be one extreme or the other.”

Rey watched him wearily. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“I sense…purpose within you.”

“You don’t even know my name.”

“It doesn’t matter. Your soul speaks for you.”

Rey rolled around this information. “I was raised by Snoke. I thought that darkness was all there could be in life.”

“And then something shifted and here you are.”

She nodded. “I’m just trying to find my place in all of this. I can’t go back to how I was before. I want more in my life than causing death and pain.”

Luke contemplated what she said for a while. She didn’t even mind the silence that surrounded them, the still air. This was as calm as Rey had felt in a very long time. And here she was, sitting across from someone who she had been raised to think of as the enemy.

“When I sensed Ben’s approach—“ Rey had to remind herself that he was talking about Kylo because she didn’t think of him as  _ Ben, _ “to Ahch-To, I took the sacred Jedi texts from there and sent them far away. I think it may be time to pass them along to someone who could truly use them.”

Rey’s eyebrows raised. “You’re not talking about me.”

“I am. I have a feeling that you’re going to bring back the Jedi.”

Rey laughed. She couldn’t help it. Her soul was stained with the thousands of lives she’d taken with the blade that hung from her hip. “I’m no Jedi.”

Luke’s eyes twinkled with knowledge and wisdom she didn’t have. “Have you ever heard of the Grey Jedi order?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ One month later _ …

Rey settled back into the bunk aboard the ship she’d been living on for three weeks now. After leaving Crait, she ditched Snoke’s ship and hid away on Takodana. The  _ Millenium Falcon _ was right where she and Kylo left it. The Wookiee’s body was no longer there. Someone must have taken it away.

The paper and bark bound books she’d seen on their first trip here were the sacred texts that Luke Skywalker told her about. It was as if the universe had these plans for her all along.

She’d been pouring over them for weeks, sucking up knowledge like a child. And she was alone for the first time in her life. Nothing besides some wildlife visited the ship. It wasn’t flyable, unless she found a way to replace the entire switchboard, and she didn’t have the kind of money to buy all those parts.

So she lived in a spaceship on the ground.

Just as she was falling asleep, one of the newer books from Luke’s collection in her lap, she felt something in the Force. She knew instantly that it was Kylo. She had always kept herself open to visits from him, though she knew she had to wait for him to contact her. She didn’t want to be the reason why he left the dark; she loved him enough to want him to find peace and balance for himself that was involved with more than just his feelings for her.

Rey left him for  _ herself _ , even though her heart still longed to be close to him.

“I was wondering when I would finally see you again,” Rey said softly as Kylo made himself known.

He showed up in her space, overlayed with his own surroundings. He looked…better, at least considering how much of a mess he looked after the battle with Snoke and the Praetorian guards. It was no wonder, considering he no longer had Snoke’s darkness infiltrating his mind.

Rey had felt significantly lighter since the death of her old Master.

“Where are you?” Kylo asked, searching her surroundings. Rey sat up, crossing her legs beneath the blanket and putting the book aside. It didn’t take him long to discern her whereabouts.

“Luke sent me here,” Rey explained before he could ask. “I followed him to Crait—“

“I know.”

She sighed. “He and I talked and he thinks that I have a long destiny set out before me.”

“What kind of destiny?” As sad as his eyes looked, he appeared interested in what she had to say.

She would be lying if she said she didn’t miss talking to him. “Have you heard of the Grey Jedi?” Kylo nodded. “Luke thinks that’s the future. He entrusted me with sacred Jedi texts. I think I’m supposed to bring the Jedi back.”

She was expecting him to be angry, but instead, he let out a small breath and nodded, a twinge of a smile on his face. “Of course.”

“I’m not trying to…undermine you, Kylo. I’m just trying to find my purpose in this life.”

“I know. I won’t stop you. It…it makes sense.”

Rey pressed her lips together in a line. She missed everything about him, and all she wanted to do was reach out and let her body speak for her, but they weren’t there yet. Plus, they were galaxies away from each other. She had to bide her time.

She did, however, get out of the bunk and pad softly to stand in front of him. She lifted a bare, soft hand to his face. She didn’t say anything, her eyes speaking for her.

“All of this,” he said, his voice low, “it’s nothing to me without you.”

Her brows came together as she resisted the tears prickling the back of her eyes. “You know why I had to leave.” She lifted her other hand and held his head between her palms. “I’m waiting for you.”

“It’s not that easy.”

It’s true. It was easier for her to slip away because she’d always just been Kylo Ren’s shadow. Hux would be happy she was gone; he never trusted her. But Kylo Ren was known; he was the Supreme Leader now. He couldn’t just… _ leave _ with no provocation.

“I thought this is what I wanted,” he continued, his hands ghosts on her hips. “But with all of this power…I’ve never felt so alone.”

Rey shook her head. “You’re not alone. I love you and I’m right here. I’m always right here.”

Kylo opened his mouth to say something but their connection was broken by a distraction from his end.

Rey stood in the middle of the empty ship, feeling loneliness settle heavily on her shoulders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_One year after the death of Supreme Leader Snoke_

Rey sat cross-legged in her small house on a circular woven rug. The newest texts from Luke’s Jedi books were open on the ground around her. Her lightsaber hilt was sitting on her lap, spanning the length of her knees.

She closed her eyes and breathed, soothing her soul and calming her mind.

She was just getting to a perfect calm when Temiri burst in through the front door, kicking up dust into the air from the sandy doorstep.

Rey sighed and opened her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?” she raised her voice to a high pitch.

Temiri’s eyes widened beneath the small brim of his hat. His clear eyes surveyed her sitting there, obviously trying to connect to the Force and he had interrupted. “Oh blast, I’m sorry,” he said with a nervous smile.

Rey narrowed her eyes at him, ignoring the swear that slipped out. “You never answered my question. You came running in here like there were beasts after you.” She paused. “ _ Are _ there beasts after you?” She started to get up.

“No, nope,” he held up dirty hands. At ten, he was rambunctious, and completely different than any person Rey had ever dealt with in her life. She had never been around other children growing up, and any she did meet tended to fall beneath her blades.

“Then what is it?” she asked, settling back down on the floor.

“Zaya just sent a message over. The Onhari Market is about to start!” he exclaimed.

Rey let a small smile tug up the corner of her lips. The Onhari Market was one of the few exciting things that the two had in their lives. It happened every three months, and it was filled with the most exotic merchants in the Outer Rim. “Oh, is that it?” She replaced her lightsaber in her lap. “We’ll go a few days after it starts, once the crowds die down. I’ll need to scrape up some coins. Why don’t you go pick some laybar berries and we’ll bring them with us.”

He nodded, his eyes hesitating on her weapon before leaving the hut.

When she’d first found Temiri, he was a slave boy working in the stables on Canto Bight under a deplorable caretaker. She’d beaten the man up and taken the Force sensitive boy with her, away from that place. If she was to start a new order of Jedi, she needed to find others she could help connect to the Force. While she hadn’t been officially a Master, and she was quite young, she had developed a very close relationship with the Force and even Luke Skywalker told her that this was something he believed she could do.

Not long after they’d taken off in her ship with newfound money Rey won on bets with the wealthy and greedy, Temiri had asked to see her lightsaber, to convince him that she was really a Jedi. She showed him, both blades lighting up the space in her ship.

He looked at the blades thoughtfully before he looked at her face. “Those are red. Doesn’t that mean you’re a bad guy?” he asked. He didn’t even look afraid or defiant. He was merely stating facts and probably coming to terms with the fact that she may kill him.

Rey had collapsed her blades and nodded. “I was, once. I killed a lot of people with this.” She tossed the doublehilt between her hands. “But I’m trying to become a better person. I don’t want to kill anyone anymore.”

And he had been okay with that.

A child’s strength was small and quiet, and it helped Rey more than she’d ever admit to anyone. She taught him not to fight, but how to channel and control the power within him. She didn’t want to create a league of warriors and soldiers.

Sitting in the midst of her new home on their secluded island off the coast, Rey once again closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Just as she was getting close to the serenity she needed, she felt her mind reach out unexpectedly to someone through the Force.

She let out a long breath and opened her eyes to see Kylo. He wasn’t in his room, but he appeared to be alone in his surroundings.

They had only reached out to each other three times since she’d left him in the throne room, Snoke sliced into two pieces, red-garbed guards dead all around them.

“Hello, Kylo,” she said, not getting up from where she was sitting. She rested her hands on her knees.

He took in her meager surroundings. It wasn’t much, but it was peaceful and it was  _ hers _ . “What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she prodded. She was much more confident in where her emotions stood now. She was becoming familiar with the swirl of human feelings that came with being out from under the control of Snoke. She felt like herself again, though not so filled with rage and hatred.

“Are those Jedi texts?” He walked carefully around her until he stood behind her, crouching down so he could read the open pages. “You’re trying to purify your kyber crystals?”

Rey nodded.

“You’d be better off finding new ones and replacing them.”

She frowned. “It’s been done.”

“Rarely.”

“I like my blade, Kylo. I just don’t want people to associate me with the Sith when they see it if I ever need to use it.” She rarely did, but this was important to her.

“It’s going to take a long time.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

“I have all the time in the world,” she mused, leaning back slightly. She had once thought that time and space between them would make her miss him less, but she still found herself craving his touch and his presence just as severely as she did when they were both apprentices and Snoke sent them on separate missions. “Why are you here?”

“The Rebels have gotten smarter and they have more supporters after Snoke’s fall,” Kylo explained. Rey wasn’t part of the Resistance. She wasn’t part of Kylo’s New Order either. She was a neutral party who occasionally had long and intense conversations with both sides of the war through Kylo and Luke. “Many of our ships have been taken out. Hux is dead.”

Rey hated the little bit of thrill that went through her as he said it. And then she reminded herself that she was allowed it. Hux had treated her poorly and she wasn’t suddenly some ethereal being. She was allowed to be angry and sad and happy and excited. She was a mixture of all of those things. “What does that mean for you?” She turned a little so she could see his face. He stood up before she could say anything else and moved around her, pacing. She certainly hoped he wasn’t in a public place for anyone to see him talking to himself.

“I…” He paused and looked at her. There was determination behind his eyes unlike anything she’d seen in a long time. “I want to be with you.”

Her heart soared, but she kept the smile on her face small. “You know how to find me. You always have,” she said softly, looking up at him.

“The Order is failing. The galaxy deserves to just be left alone for a while,” he said. Just as she’d always hoped, he had found his way back to her. It even took less time than she’d expected. She was willing to wait decades, but was thankful it didn’t take that long.

“I agree,” she said with a nod.

He looked down at her with a softness she couldn’t wait to see in person once he arrived. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, before he disappeared.

Once he was gone, Rey allowed her torso to sag with relief, a wide smile stretched across her face. Putting aside her lightsaber, she got to her feet and pushed open the door, stepping outside.

The planet she’d chosen was small, with temperate weather. There was sand and there were plants. It wasn’t a dry as Jakku and it wasn’t as green as Takodana, but it was starting to feel like home.

“Temiri!” she called out. The kid came out of the nearby trees, large berries the size of his fist held in the front of his tunic. “Those look delicious.”

“Did you fix your lightsaber?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet. We’re going to have a guest soon,” she added. She wasn’t sure she would tell him, but figured a surprise wasn’t what Kylo wanted. She’d told him about Temiri during the Force talk they had not long after Rey had found the boy, but she wasn’t sure if he was expecting them to still be together. Rey felt responsible for Temiri, and she was beginning to feel as if he were her family, strangely enough.

“Really? We don’t get guests.”

“Not usually, no,” Rey shook her head. “I need you to be on your best behavior, okay? He’s not used to children.”

Temiri replicated Rey’s narrowed eyes. “Rey, I’m not  _ a child _ . I’m ten!”

She put her hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow. “Oh, well, I’m sorry for calling you a child. Let’s just say that he’s not used to dealing with someone so much younger than him.”

In true childish fashion, Temiri stuck his tongue out at her and then walked into the hut to put the large fruits into a basin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three days later, Temiri came running into the house where Rey was trying to sleep deep into the morning. He skidded into her bedroom and shook her shoulder, jerking her awake.

“There’s someone here!” he exclaimed.

She squinted into the bright room and let out a groan. She was so tired, but she dragged her feet out of bed and onto the soft, smooth floor. “Where are they?” she asked, mind still bleary from sleep.

“I saw the ship coming in. It’s big and black.” Temiri said as she stood. Rey pulled a long robe over her sleeping shirt and soft pants. She smoothed out her hair with a brush and rubbed her face. “Is he a bad guy too?”

Rey sighed, tying the thin, tan robe around her middle and pushing her feet into soft slipper-like shoes. “He used to be,” she replied as simply as she could. “He’s like me. He’s going to try to be a better person.”

Temiri shrugged. “Does he have a cool lightsaber like you?”

Rey laughed and messed up his hair with her hand. “Yes, but I don’t think you should ask about it right away. He just left a dark place, he isn’t as…stable as I am.”

Temiri followed her out of the bedroom. She swished some water around her mouth and decided this was as good as she was going to look on short notice. Following Temiri out, she squinted against the early suns, shielding her eyes from the light.

Down near the beach, there indeed was a ship setting down. It wasn’t a ship she recognized, though it was from the same model as  _ Carnage _ . While she wasn’t as attached to her ship as Kylo was to his, seeing the sleek design made her think of her own ship, probably blown up in a Rebel attack and in pieces somewhere in the galaxy.

Unlike  _ Carnage _ , this ship was black.

“Wait here,” Rey said, grabbing Temiri’s shoulder to keep him from running down to the beach. “He’s not used to…younger people, remember? Just stay up here, don’t ambush him.”

Temiri sighed but nodded. “Fine.” He shuffled off, sad to be missing the most exciting thing happen since they moved onto this island.

Rey’s heart fluttered as she walked down the soft dunes to the beach. She stopped a few yards away and watched Kylo climbed out, landing heavily on the sand. It took mere moments for his eyes to find hers.

She gave him a soft, warm smile, something she’d never been able to give him before.

He was wearing black and dark grey, forgoing any capes, though his lightsaber hilt still hung at his side.

“You made it,” she said softly. They walked toward each other like magnets. It was a soft pull, as if the year apart had made things uncertain between them. She knew how deeply she loved him and that hadn’t changed. But they as people had changed, and that’s what was different.

“I can always find you,” Kylo said. There was a softness to his face that was new. His scar no longer looked as angry, even the way he walked was less like a march. He looked good, as if the the dark side had been a physical weight he carried with him at all times, and now that it was gone...well, Rey could tell that his soul was healing.

She smiled, unable to help herself, tucking her arms around her ribcage. “I’ve missed you,” she said, even though she said it every time they’d slip into each other’s minds over the past year. She would stop saying it once it stopped being true.

Kylo moved first, lifting a bare hand and brushing the back of his fingers across her cheek. “I’ve missed you too.”

“But you had to find your own way here,” she insisted. She stepped forward, all hesitation gone. She gripped his shirt in her small hands. “You know that right? I didn’t stay with you or force you to come with me because you had to heal yourself on your own.”

He nodded, sliding his hand through her hair. It was a lot longer than the last time they’d been together. “I know. I don’t blame you. I understand now.”

She smiled with relief and then stepped back, though she made sure to catch his falling hand in her own. “Temiri is dying to meet you. I think he may explode if I don’t introduce you within the next five minutes,” she said with an apologetic expression.

“He’s that boy you told me about?”

So he did remember. “Yes. He’s quite natural with the Force,” she said, keeping hold of his hand and walking up the dune. “But he’s young and I’m teaching him slowly. I want him to find his own way. I won’t force my ideals on him.”

Both of them knew how that went. Either way, the severe the light or the dark created flawed and broken creatures. Rey was hoping that a mutual balance between the two would create something — someone — better.

They reached the top, where the small domed hut sat in the shade of the trees with a view of the beach and the mainland across the sea.

“Temiri!” Rey called out. He was nowhere in sight and she tried not to think about what trouble he got himself into. They lived alone on this island, but there were creatures in the woods and the boy could pick a fight with a wet bag. She’d once had to pull thirty quills out of his hands and legs when he angered one of the natural residents.

Luckily, the small, shaggy haired boy darted out of the woods at the sound of his name. He skidded on bare feet to a stop before Kylo and Rey. He had a momentary gape of awe on his face before he straightened his shoulders and gave a little half bow of respect. “Temiri Blagg, sir,” he said, flashing Rey a quick look.

She lifted a hand to her mouth and hid a laugh.

Kylo also glanced at her, the mediator. “Kylo Ren,” he said finally.

Temiri was holding all of his excitement in, which Rey was thankful for. “Temiri, why don’t you bring the berries to the ship and get ready to go to Onhari,” Rey suggested, to give him something to do.

He nodded and darted into the hut, only to reappear a few minutes later with shoes shoved on his feet and a covered woven basket in his hands. He made his way easily down the sandy slope to Rey’s small ship.

“So that’s Temiri,” Rey said, leading Kylo into the small building she called a home. “You’ll get used to him. If you’re staying,” she added. She wanted to be cautious, because she wasn’t sure if she could handle more heartbreak. Kylo may have left the Order, but that didn’t mean that he felt as if his fate was tied into hers. What if his was different? What if his path meant he was to be alone, while hers was to collect and teach a new generation of Jedi?

She swallowed down a lump in her throat and turned to him in the middle of the big main room. “And this is where I live,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not much but it’s peaceful and neutral.”

He had seen this before, of course, when he visited, but it was different now. “It feels like a home,” he commented.

“It is.” She bit down on the inside of her cheek before moving toward him. “Kylo, if—“

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. He had her head gingerly in his hands and he dipped down to kiss her. It was soft and sweet and she could have cried if she wasn’t suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that she hadn’t been touched in far too long and he was real and he was here and all she wanted was him.

They kissed and stumbled backward through the house. She tugged him along, knowing the way and pulling him through the open doorway to her bedroom. She untucked his shirt and slid her hands against his skin as he trailed kisses down her neck. His shirt came off and her robe slipped to the floor. She pulled him to the bed and they fell on it in a tangle of limbs.

She missed all of this. His touch, his smell, the weight of his body on top of hers. She could get lost in all of this, but a little devil in the back of her head reminded her that she couldn’t stay here.

Against all of her desires, Rey pushed a single hand against the middle of his chest and his head came up from where he’d been kissing her shoulder to look down at her. She rested her other hand against her temple.

“I can’t,” she said, though nothing about her tone of voice or body movements agreed with what her mouth said. “I promised Temiri I’d go to this festival with him. He’s waiting down in my ship.”

Kylo’s breathing was a little heavy. He laid his hand, large and calloused, against the side of her neck. “Right now?” She nodded and he groaned, leaning his forehead against hers.

“I’ll be back tonight,” she whispered, moving her hand from his chest to tuck hair behind his ear.

He kissed her then, long and hard, before untangling from her. She lay against the mattress for a moment before she got to her feet, her entire body tingling. She changed her clothes to more festival friendly things: short dark trousers, ankle-high boots, pale tunic, and a quilted cover vest with a belt around the middle. She pulled her hair back into three loops. Kylo stayed lounged out across her bed the whole time.

“I get to be alone all day?” he asked, sitting up and placing his feet against the floor.

She walked over, placing her thighs between his thighs and putting her hands on his shoulders. “Yes. It will do you good. How often have you been able to be alone? Truly alone?”

“I didn’t come here to be alone,” he said, gently taking her hips in his hands.

“I know.” She stroked his face with one of her hands. “But I think you have a long way to heal and this is going to help you.” She dipped down and kissed him. “Trust me.”

It was extremely hard to walk away from him. She’d been waiting for him for so long, she was afraid that if she left, it would all be a dream. Or if she left, she’d come back to him being gone. She gave him one last look over her shoulder before ducking out of the house.

She was starving, but she would get something freshly made on the mainland once they got there.

Temiri was sitting impatiently in the copilot’s seat of the small craft when she finally stepped onboard. The basket of laybar berries sat in his lap. “What took you so long?” he groaned as she sat next to him and flipped switches.

“I needed to get Kylo settled,” she said with a shrug, waiting for the engines to start up. It was a short trip to the mainland. They could take a boat if they wanted, but they’d be bringing stuff back with them and she wanted to make sure they had enough space.

“Is he your husband?” Temiri asked bluntly as soon as the ship lifted off.

Rey almost swallowed her tongue from the shock of the question. “Excuse me?”

“Is Kylo your husband?” He asked it slowly, making fun of her.

“No,” Rey said with a shake of her head. “He is not. Why would you think that?”

He shrugged. “I saw you on the beach. It looked like husband and wife stuff.”

She laughed and reached over to tussle his hair. “How do you know what husband and wife stuff looks like? Did the fathier teach you on Canto Bight?”

He shook his head. “I saw people at the races and at the casino acting like that.”

Rey settled back in her seat and steered them toward the port city that was teaming with life and merchants. “I’m pretty sure that was more man and mistress stuff,” she muttered, “but close enough.”

Thankfully, Temiri was too excited about going to the Market to bother much with what she was mumbling next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for those who aren't totally involved in the Star Wars Universe, I distinctly wanted to paint an image for you all about "purifying kyber crystals"...basically, what makes a Sith lightsaber red is their kyber crystal is infused with darkness and it ~rejects it~ basically making the light red rather than it's natural color, staining it you could say. In a few instances, namely by Ahsoka Tano, someone can "heal" a dark side kyber crystal which takes a lot of time and power from the Force user and results in a white bladed lightsaber.
> 
> Just...imagine Grey Jedi Rey with a white double-lightsaber? I'm crying at the beauty of the thought.
> 
> //nerd rant over


	22. Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the end. Thanks to everyone for reading through and commenting and supporting my work!

It was true: Kylo hadn’t been alone, as in devoid of other people around him, in a very long time. He couldn’t remember a time, unless he was flying a ship and even then he was usually on coms or had troopers with him.

It was an intriguing feeling that he wasn’t sure what to do with.

Rey’s bed was incredibly soft and warm and smelled like her and he must have dozed off because he woke up some time later with the suns in different spots in the sky. He hadn’t slept well since she left. A year was a long time. He’d felt like a crazed man most of the time, and his rage was still as easily triggered as always.

But it simmered, as the months passed and Kylo fell into a position of power, one that he realized he didn’t want. He didn’t want the military control, he just wanted to  _ rule _ . It was an impossible, childish task he wanted to achieve, and it took him a while to realize it was going to eat him up from the inside if he let it consume him.

And by then, Rey had left and he didn’t know how to get her back.

She made it easy. All she’d ever wanted was him, and here he was.

Kylo stood, not bothering to put his shirt back on. There was no one else on this island except for animals. He’d already reached out and felt for other intelligent life. There was nothing. He was truly alone.

The last time he was in a  _ home _ was so long ago, it didn’t even feel like his own memory. He ran his fingertips along the smooth sandstone walls, ducked under the doorway to Rey’s room. The house was small and awkwardly shaped. While Rey’s bedroom led almost directly into the main room where there was a rug on the floor, a table on the side and the front door to the left, there were two thin, tunnellike hallways that branched off and a small alcove that held a sink and a stove for cooking. One of the tunnels led into a small room where Rey had set up Jedi textbooks and various melee weapons that were meant for training: staffs made of soft woods, mock swords, and other things. The shining hilt of her saber was hooked on the wall, which struck him as odd. He still detested being away from his weapon.

Back to the main room, Kylo explored the other tunnel. He had bend nearly in half to crouch through, though it came out in a small room that was kept cool by being deep within the forest. It must have been Temiri’s room, because it had a small bunk and a few toys. A small wooden sword made of a crooked stick and twine around a crossguard sat leaning up against a small chest. There was such a childlike air in the room that Kylo was taken aback. He moved back to the main part of the house and returned to Rey’s room.

_ Supremacy _ had sustained too much damage to keep, so any of Rey’s things on the ship had been lost. Hux wouldn’t give up the  _ Finalizer _ , and even if he did, Kylo’s room was destroyed and Rey’s quarters were cold and barren. He had nothing of hers to his name. He would even admit that he forgot the way she smelled, the way her skin felt under his in the year that had passed.

He couldn’t help it. He stepped to her meager closet, filled with soft clothes of soft, warm colors. A year had changed her so much, and yet he could still see  _ Rey _ , the one that intrigued him when he first saw her fight five years ago. It had been more than just a tactical reason for wanting to help her train. He was drawn to her inexplicably.

And now he was here, and she had been here for a mere moment before she was off again, diving into a life that she created for herself. He hoped he would be able to fit into it, now that he was here.

He wasn’t all that ashamed to say he bunched up one of her shirts and inhaled her faint scent mixed with the natural fiber and the salt from the sea that clung in the air.

Kylo knew better than to underestimate Rey, even though she had taken on a soft quality that he’d never seen in her. When he got out of his ship and saw her, it was different than all the times through the bond. He knew that her hair was inches longer, that her skin was tanned and her freckles prominent…but it was everything mixed together with her voice and her soft clothes that made her look small even though she wasn’t terribly small to begin with. It was not what he expected, even if he knew it was coming.

He felt the same but different. It was a slow process, trying to figure out who he was without Snoke poking around in his mind. He wasn’t Ben Solo anymore, but he didn’t feel like Kylo Ren either. So who was he? He was still trying to figure it out, though at least he figured out enough to end up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day felt short. Kylo spend most of it asleep in Rey’s bed and eating whatever food he could find in her small kitchen. The suns set and not long after, as Kylo sat in the sand and scrub grass outside Rey’s house, he saw the lights of her small shuttle come across the water. He didn’t move, quite relaxed as he was, and watched as the small ramp went down and Temiri burst out of the ship faster than any human he’d seen. The boy was yelling about his favorite things from the festival, juggling two large baskets in his arms.

It took Rey struggling off the ship with her own arms filled with Kylo to stand. He met them halfway and took the top basket out of Rey’s arms.

“Look at all this stuff!” Temiri exclaimed to Kylo.

“It’s a lot,” Kylo responded timidly.

Rey snickered. “He used his last coins to buy sweets. He’ll probably fall asleep the second he hits the pillow, though,” she whispered to him. “He sleeps like the dead.” She smiled, another thing that was new. It lit up her face, even her eyes a little, though there was still a bit of pain and hurt deep inside.

Temiri was good about putting all of their goods on the table before he started to rush away down the hall to his room. Rey caught the back of his shirt with skill that she must have learned quickly after picking him up and taking him along with her.

“Brush your teeth first,” she narrowed her eyes at him and shoved him toward the other hall. There was a small washroom behind a door opposite Rey’s room, sharing a wall with the kitchen nook.

He grumbled but disappeared into the room. Rey motioned for Kylo to put his basket down and she dug into the top of it. “I bought you some clothes,” she said, pulling out a few light colored things and handing them to him. “You can’t walk around looking like you’re from the Order.”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead, and he nodded, taking the clothes, even though he had nowhere to put them. The fabric was soft and reminded him of his clothes from the Jedi Temple: light colored like sand, though she’d gotten him some darker trousers. “Thank you,” he said, setting them down on the table.

“I’m…happy you’re still here,” Rey said, flicking her eyes up at him. “If I’m being honest, I left you alone to test you. To see if you’d decide to leave or to stay.”

Kylo couldn’t be upset with her for being cautious. He lifted his hand and brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I’m here to stay,” he said softly, “if you’ll have me.”

She nodded. “I’ve been waiting this whole time. Of course I will.” She leaned up, about to kiss him, when Temiri came out of the bathroom. He somehow already looked half asleep, any energy from his sweets spent.

“Goodnight,” Rey said, ruffling his hair. He mumbled a “Goodnight Rey, Kylo, sir,” and disappeared down the tunnel to his room.

Once he was gone, Kylo watched as Rey started sorting through baskets. “How does that work?” he asked, motioning toward the hall.

Rey shrugged. “I’m not sure. This is the first time training someone,” she sighed, pulling food from a basket and hauling it into the kitchen space. “He’s the only kid I’ve found, so I got attached. It’s like he’s a little brother…which I’m sure the old Jedi Masters would scold me for.” She said it so casually. He’d forgotten what it was like to talk of the Jedi not as the enemy. She read the books filled with the knowledge that he had in his own mind. She knew about them in theory; she knew Luke.

“It’s understandable,” Kylo said, wishing he could do something rather than stand there in his dark clothes like a mammoth in her small, cozy house. “Though I don’t recommend adopting any more future Jedi to live in your personal space.”

Rey looked through the last basket, leaving everything on the table that wasn’t food. “Noted,” she said, stepping away from the table and stepping up in front of him. “How was your day?”

He had no idea how this was going to work, and for the first time in their partnership, Rey had more knowledge about how to go about healing his soul than he did. He would follow her lead on this. “Quiet,” he responded. “I slept mostly.”

She smiled at him softly. He could get used to that. “That’s good.”

“Did you enjoy the…festival?” he asked. He didn’t know what kind of festival it was, but he saw the bright lights and many ships from across the sea.

“It was nice. It’s just a big market really, but there are parades so most everyone calls it a festival.” She was standing so close, yet neither of them moved to touch the other, as if they were once again testing the waters.

“And you’ve been happy here?” He knew she was. She was working on her internal peace and balance, and it suited her well. She looked beautiful in a different kind of way from the dark and harsh beauty she had as Snoke’s apprentice.

“I am. I haven’t killed anyone in six months,” she said, proud of the fact.

“Six months?” he echoed, raising his eyebrows. He wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe he thought that she wouldn’t have killed anyone since leaving him in the throne room. Maybe he thought that she wouldn’t have stopped but done it less often.

She waved a hand. “Some guy grabbed Temiri and tried to steal him during a supply run off planet. I overreacted. It was an accident. I don’t  _ want _ to kill people needlessly.”

“It sounds like you had a good reason.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I make it look easier than it is.”

“Make what look easy?”

Rey spread her hands out to either side. “Normalcy.” She looked up at him as if begging him to have the answers, or maybe to just understand. “I catch myself sometimes, falling into old habits.” She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them, her pupils big and wide and dark. “I think the only reason why I’ve stayed this way so long is because of Temiri.”

“I doubt…my uncle, would have given you possession of the most precious Jedi history if he didn’t think you could handle it.” Kylo touched her shoulder gently, unable to stand the space between them. He’d come so far, after so long. They had a lot of time to make up for.

“Since when are you so good at comforting me?” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes comically.

“I was always pretty good at it. You just never needed it,” he said with a shrug. It was a half lie and a half truth. She never needed it, so he wasn’t sure if he would have been good at it. He was good after she started to fall apart. Or so he thought.

“Hmmm,” she said, digging her hands into the front of his dark shirt, gathering the fabric in her fists. “I do need something from you now.”

She kissed him, pulling him down to meet her halfway. A year away hadn’t blurred his memory of this, of the way their bodies fit together, though he missed the sensation of it.

They kissed there by the door, lingering and deep. They weren’t about to be interrupted for a mission or an attack from the Rebels. They could take their time.

They slowly moved toward Rey’s room, Rey breaking off their kiss and taking his hand to lead him through the dark interior. The moonlight shone through her window, shedding enough light in the small room.

Each kiss was long and languid, and their clothes slowly came off piece by piece until there was nothing but skin touching skin. Hers was much tanner than his, her scars showing like white explosions across her body. His were more, deeper, angrier, slashes and blasts. It was something to remind them that they were still the same people. The same pasts existed under their skin.

Rey pulled him onto the bed with her, her legs spreading around his hips. Her eyes fluttered closed when he entered her and she moaned against his mouth as he thrust. She left divots in his skin with her nails and teeth, clutching at his back, scraping teeth over his neck. Shifting his knees to change the angle, she gasped and squeezed his hips with her thighs.

Moments later, his back was against the mattress and she leaned over him, bits of her hair falling into his face. He didn’t care. With his eyes closed, he took her head in his hands and brought her lips to his.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips, one hand firmly against his chest.

He always knew that she meant it, but they’d never been allowed to  _ feel _ it in the past. When she’d said the words for the first time, back in the throne room after killing Snoke and the guards, he hadn’t known how to feel. But there was no doubt about it now. 

“I love you,” he echoed back before crushing his lips to hers. An exclamation caught in the back of her throat, but she kissed him and moved her hips and dug her nails into his chest.

Their hands roamed, leaving angry red lines that would stay for hours. Time seemed to slip by until they’d tangled in the sheets and finally their bodies shuddered and things in the room stopped shaking.

Hearts thudding, skin covered in sweat, Kylo dipped down for another kiss, smoothing damp hair from her face. They didn’t say anything but she kissed his chin and they broke apart to settle down on the mattress.

Cool air circled around them as they got comfortable, Rey like a magnet to his side.

“I don’t know what my place here will be,” he said, stroking her hair and staring up at the sloped ceiling.

Rey laid soft and still next to him. “You’re my partner,” she said, as if it was obvious. “We’ll do this together. We find people. Train them. Try to find the balance not within the galaxy itself, but within each person. I think that’s what the world has been missing.”

“Balance?”

“Yeah. Not to the extreme that the Sith and Jedi believed, but a balance within each person. Because if that’s the case, then the whole universe will be balanced.” She frowned and glanced up at him. “Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“So will you stay by my side?” she asked, settling her head back down against his chest.

“Yes.”

Rey sighed with content. “You’ll never be alone again.”

“Neither will you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe I wrote an ending like this. I’m never known for my happy endings but I feel like they truly deserve this. And half of the reason I wrote this is because of [this beautiful fucking fanart](http://wondrous-flora.tumblr.com/post/157363918257/waking-up-next-to-you-though-is-something-i) like holy crap it’s so beautiful and gave me feelings and inspiration.


End file.
